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^ A 

SLAVEHOLDER'S 
DAUGHTER 



BY 

/ 

BELLE KEARNEY 



(.FULL V ILL USTRA TED) 



THE 



Hbbey press 

PUBLISHERS 

114 

FIFTH AVENUE 

NEW YORK 



83399 

Library of Cori^i<e«a 

Two Copies RectivFo 
DEC 3 1900 

/r\ Copyright entry 

SECOND COPY 

Oo<iv»r9d to 

ORDER DIVISION 
DEC 10 190P 






Copyright 1900 

by 

The Abbey Press 

in 

the 

United States 

and 
Great Britain 



All Rights Reserved 




BELLE KEARNEY. 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 



Miss Belle Kearney, the writer of this book, belongs 
to an old, conservative, Southern family. She was born 
on a plantation near Vernon, Mississippi, and was edu- 
cated in her native state. A fezv years were spent in 
the gay society of the times, but the changed social 
and economic conditions that followed the civil war led 
her to a nobler, more iisefid life. When quite young 
she became a teacher and for six years zvas ranked 
among the successfid educators. In i88p she was called 
to enter the lecture Held and has since risen to be one 
of the most logical, brilliant and popidar speakers upon 
the American platform. Her public life has made her 
an extensive traveler; carrying her into Canada, 
Europe, and throughout the United States from 
Alaska to the Gidf of Mexico. In the years of varied 
experiences that have come to Miss Kearney, she has 
made a deep study of humanity and the problems of 
life; this has caused her to be looked upon as one of 
the leaders of thought in the nation. 

THE PUBLISHERS 



/ wait for my story — the birds cannot sing it, 

Not one as he sits on the tree; 
The bells cannot ring it, but long years, O bring it! 

Such as I wish it to be. 

— ^Jean Ingelow. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER. PAGE. 

I. THE OLD SOUTH I 

II. CHANGED CONDITIONS 10 

III. READJUSTMENT 20 

IV. THE YOUNG LADIES' ACADEMY 33 

V. STORMS OF THE SOUL 43 

VI. A NEGRO SERMON 53 

VII. A HIGHER LIFE 66 

VIIL THE PUBLIC SCHOOL MA'aM 74 

IX. EDUCATIONAL MATTERS 84 

X. THE SOUTHERN PROBLEM 90 

XL EVOLUTION OF SOUTHERN WOMEN I07 

XIL THE TRANSFORMATION 125 

XIII. MISS FRANCES E. WILLARD I3I 

XIV. THE NEW CAREER 139 

XV. MY FIRST SPEECH I49 

XVI. AWAY DOWN SOUTH IN DIXIE 155 

XVIL HOW DE CAP'n COME THU I7I 

XVIIL A SOUTHERN PILGRIMAGE 182 

XIX. UPON THE HEIGHTS I9I 

XX. ACROSS THE SEA 200 

XXL ON THE CONTINENT 208 

XXII. THE SORROW 2l8 

XXIII. THE FAR WEST AND ALASKA 225 

XXIV. THE LATTER DAY SAINTS 234 

XXV. IN COLORADO 245 

XXVL THE OLD PLANTATION HOME 252 

XXVII. THE LAST FAREWELL 258 

XXVIIL THE HEAVENLY BIRTHDAY 264 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAGE 

The Old Plantation Home 4 

" Ugh ! I an't see'd no silver myself ! " 13 

" Crying, sister ? " he asked, coolly 24 

" Ycr'll neber see 'im gwine inter his house ter his wife an' 

little chilluns when de day's wuk's done " 59 

As in Ante-bellum Days 86 

A Typical Negro Cabin of the South 92 

Cotton Picking as Now Done 99 

Weighing Cotton in the Field 105 

A Scene on the Bayou Teche 172 

Loading up for a Trip to New Orleans 179 

John Wesley's Oak, Frederica, St. Simons, Georgia 221 

" Now, my bredderin, a partin' an' a farewell word " 256 



A Slaveholder's Dauehter 



CHAPTER I 

THE OLD SOUTH 



A land without ruins is a land without memories ;— a land 
without memories is a land without history. A land that 
wears a laurel crown may be fair to see; but twine a few 
sad cypress leaves around the brow of any land, and be that 
land barren and bleak, it becomes lovely in its consecrated 
coronet of sorrow, and it wins the sympathy of the heart and 
of history. Crowns of roses fade — crowns of thorns endure. 
Calvaries and crucifixions take the deepest hold on humanity. 
— Anon. 

The South was in its glory. It was very rich and 
very proud. Its wealth consisted of slaves and planta- 
tions. Its pride was masterful from a consciousness of 
power. The customs of society retained the color of 
older European civilization, although the affairs of 
state were conducted according to the ideals of a radical 
democracy. Its social structure was simple, homogen- 
eous. Three castes existed. The slaveholders consti- 
tuted the gentry. Generally, those of this class served 
in the legislatures, studied law, medicine, theology ; con- 

I 



2 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

ducted extensive mercantile enterprises and controlled 
their private finances, — seeking recreation in hunting, 
traveling, entertaining, and in the cultivation of the 
elegant pursuits that most pleased their particular turn 
of mind. 

The life of the great landowners and slaveholders 
resembled that of the old feudal lords. The overseer 
stood between the master and the slave in matters of 
detail. He conducted the local business of the planta- 
tion, managed the negroes, and was the possessor of 
almost unlimited power when the less serious-minded 
planter preferred his pleasures to his duties. The mid- 
dle class carried on the concerns of commerce and the 
trades incident to a vast agricultural area, and were the 
men of affairs in its churches and municipalities. The 
third class constituted a yeomanry, — small farmers who, 
for the most part, preempted homesteads on the poorer 
lands, sometimes owning a few slaves, and who lived 
in a world of their own, — the westward drift from the 
Atlantic seaboard and the Blue Ridge mountains, with 
an inherited tone of life that defied change until the 
public school, of post-bellum origin, began its syste- 
matic inroads on the new generation. 

Ladies of wealth and position were surrounded by re- 
finements and luxury. They had their maids and coach- 
men and a retinue of other servants. There was a time- 
honored social routine from which they seldom varied ; 
a decorous exchange of visits, elaborate dinings and 
other interchanges of dignified courtesies. Every en- 
tertainment was punctilious, strongly suggestive of co- 
lonial gatherings. No young woman went out un- 



The Old South 3 

chaperoned. Marriage was the ultimatum of her 
existence and was planned for from the cradle by inter- 
ested relatives. When the holy estate had been entered, 
women glided gracefully into the position of the most 
honored occupant of the home and kept their trust 
faithfully, making devoted wives and worshipful 
mothers. 

The popular delusion is that the ante-bellum South- 
ern woman, like Christ's lilies, " toiled not." Though 
surrounded by the conditions for idleness she was not 
indolent after she became the head of her own house- 
hold. Every woman sewed, often making her own 
dresses; the clothing of all the slaves on a plantation 
was cut and made by negro seamstresses under her di- 
rect supervision, even the heavy coats of the men ; she 
ministered personally to them in cases of sickness, fre- 
quently maintaining a well managed hospital under her 
sole care. She was a most skillful housekeeper, though 
she did none of the work with her own hands, and her 
children grew up around her knees ; however, the black 
" mammy " relieved her of the actual drudgery of child- 
worry. 

The women of the South, in the main, realized their 
obligations and met them with reflective efficiency. Not- 
withstanding their apparent freedom from responsibil- 
ity and their outward lightness of character, there was 
the deepest undertone of religious enthusiasm pervad- 
ing their natures ; and this saving grace has clung to 
the Southerners through all their changing fortunes. 
They are the most devout people in this nation to-day. 
Among them is found less infidelity, — fewer '' isms " 



4 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

have crept into their orthodoxy. As they have re- 
mained the most purely Anglo-Saxon, so have they 
continued the most reverent. The army of governesses 
and public school teachers was made up of gentle- 
women of reduced means, the large middle class, and of 
women from the North. Teaching, sewing and keep- 
ing boarders were about the only occupations open to 
women of that day by which they could obtain a liveli- 
hood. 

Mississippi, like her sister states, was at the height 
of prosperity. The wealthier classes were congregated 
in the counties bordering on the great river, and its trib- 
utaries, and in the rich prairie belt of the north-east 
section. Madison was one of the leading counties. 
Around the little village of Vernon, located in its south- 
western portion, there stretched vast landed estates 
owned by ten or twelve families. On each plantation 
was an elegant residence for the master's household, 
and a cluster of small cabins known as the " quarters " 
where the negroes lived. On one of these plantations 
my father established himself after his marriage. It 
came to him with his slaves as an inheritance. The 
majority of his neighbors were his relatives, the rest 
were personal friends. These constituted a congenial 
and delightful society. At the beginning of each sum- 
mer the families migrated to the Gulf of Mexico, to the 
mountains of Tennessee and Virginia, or to the North- 
ern states and Canada. The ennui of the winter sea- 
son was avoided by visits to New Orleans and other 
Southern cities. 

After father had completed his college course he went 







o 



a, 

O 



The Old South 5 

to Lexington, Kentucky, to study law. On arriving he 
began to argue with himself that it was absurd to spend 
months in gaining knowledge of a profession which he 
did not expect to follow, as he should always have his 
slaves and hundreds of acres of land to provide him 
with an income. After traveling several weeks he re- 
turned to Mississippi, married mother, who was hand- 
somely provided with property like his own, and settled 
down to the complacent life of a planter. Although 
born to that vocation, it was very soon manifest that 
his heart was not in it. He shut himself up with his 
books, became a close student of politics, and in 1858 
was elected to the legislature, since which time he has 
been vitally interested in the political life of his state 
and country. 

Father was a fine type of the Southern gentleman of 
the old regime; in person, tall, slender, well-proportioned, 
blue-eyed, brown-haired, with delicate, clear cut fea- 
tures, and noble expression; cultured, high-bred, 
courtly; full of an intense family pride — brave, gener- 
ous, chivalrous. 

The election of Mr. Lincoln in i860 to the lofty posi- 
tion of president of the United States was regarded by 
the Southern people as foreshadowing the destruction 
of slavery. The senators from South Carolina were 
so impressed with this conviction that they almost im- 
mediately withdrew from the national Capital. Legis- 
latures were called in extraordinary session by the gov- 
ernors of the states in the far South for the purpose 
of devising means of protection from the troubles which 
they presumed would soon follow. A convention as- 



6 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

cembled in Jackson, Mississippi, on the 7th of January, 
1861, and in two days an act was passed called: ''An 
Ordinance to Dissolve the Union between the State of 
Mississippi and Other United States with Her under 
the Compact Entitled, ' The Constitution of the United 
States of America.' " In short, Mississippi seceded, in 
an hour freighted with exultant confidence, with tears, 
with a sense of solemn responsibility. Her national sen- 
ators, acting on command of the state, retired at once 
from Washington. Almost every state in the South 
pursued a course nearly identical with that of Missis- 
sippi. 

The proposed amendment to the Constitution of the 
United States, declaring that states would be protected 
perpetually from the interference of the general gov- 
ernment in the maintenance of slavery, was defeated 
in the Senate. A few months after seven Southern 
states held conventions and adopted their famous " Pro- 
visional Constitution for the Confederate States of 
America." Belligerent preparations began, follovyed by 
the bombardment of Fort Sumter, which brought forth 
the proclamation of President Lincoln calling for volun- 
teer troops to suppress the insurrection. After that 
came the civil war which raged four years, — unsur- 
passed in history for deeds of valor, heroic endurance, 
terrible suffering and sweeping desolation. 

Father was in full sympathy with the leaders of the 
Confederacy in the cause they espoused. As soon as 
the first breath of impending strife reached him he be- 
gan to struggle with military tactics, and was among 
the first to volunteer. He entered the service as first 



The Old South . 7 

lieutenant of the Eighteenth Mississippi regiment, and 
was promoted after the battle of Leesburg to the posi- 
tion of Heutenant colonel. In the spring of 1862 he 
came home on furlough from Virginia. Soon after re- 
turning to his command, he was stricken with an ill- 
ness of such a serious nature that he was compelled 
again to retire to the plantation in Mississippi. Com- 
modore Farragut was attacking Vicksburg. The gov- 
ernor of Mississippi called for volunteers in its defense. 
Father had sufficiently recovered to answer and, going 
at once to the City of Bluffs, witnessed the first bom- 
bardment. When General Sherman made his subse- 
quent movement against Vicksburg, father again vol- 
unteered his services. 

A requisition had been made by the Confederate gov- 
ernment on Southern planters to furnish slaves to build 
fortifications around Vicksburg. They were sent in 
vast numbers to do this work which had hitherto been 
done only by soldiers. Grandfather owned an old negro 
man, by the name of Moody, who did nothing but make 
a daily tour of the different residences of the Kearney 
relatives in the Vernon neighborhood to inquire into the 
state of health of the occupants, report to grandmother, 
and in the afternoon to drive up the cows. In his mili- 
tary life father carried a servant with him. On going to 
Vicksburg the second time he took Moody along to al- 
low the old man to see his sons who were working on 
the fortifications, as well as to play the role of attendant. 
It was the last day of the year 1862. My father and his 
kinsman, James Andrews, a young Confederate officer, 
were on the train going over to Vicksburg with hearts 



8 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

on fire and restless with eagerness to be in the midst 
of the war. It was a glorious winter afternoon, ripe 
with sunshine and balmy with the breath of Southern 
winds. 

" What a beautiful ride we are having, cousin 
Walter ! " Just as the words were uttered the engine 
was thrown violently from the track. A horrible rail- 
road wreck followed, mangling and killing the soldiers, 
with whom the cars were crowded, as completely as a 
broadside from the enemy's gunboats could have done. 
Old Moody escaped unhurt. In wild despair he car- 
ried the terrible tidings back to the home of his master. 
Bursting into grandmother's room he exclaimed : 

" Lor, mistis ! Marse Jimmie done killed, and marse 
Walter nigh onto daid ! " 

As soon as the news reached mother she ordered her 
carriage and drove as quickly as possible through the 
country to the little tov/n of Edwards near which 
Moody said the wreck had occurred, and where father 
had been removed. There she found him, with spine 
injured, three ribs broken, right hand and arm crushed 
and raving in delirium. After many wretched weeks 
consciousness returned to the maimed soldier; one by 
one he picked up the tangled threads of his broken life ; 
little by little the tide of strength swept in, and he was 
carried tenderly back to his plantation home. 

Every overture made to the Southern states by Presi- 
dent Lincoln, backed by the national government, for 
the cessation of armed hostilities was rejected with firm- 
ness. In consequence, the Emancipation Proclamation 
was issued the ist of January, 1863. The 6th of March 



The Old South 9 

following, on the plantation at Vernon, my eyes caught 
their first glimpse of the light of life, — just two months 
and six days too late for me to be a Constitutional slave- 
holder. 



CHAPTER II 

CHANGED CONDITIONS 

Our life Is always deeper than we know, is always more 
divine than it seems, and hence we are able to survive degrada- 
tions and despairs which otherwise must have engulfed us. — 
Henry James. 

Two more years passed — hideous in bloody strife. 
The Southern armies, decimated by battle and sick- 
ness, were almost destroyed. The Federal forces, over- 
whelming in numbers, victorious, jubilant, forced their 
way into every Southern state. 

Mississippi was held by them from the Tennessee 
border to the Gulf of Mexico. Robert E. Lee, with his 
pitiful band of starving men numbering under 25,000, 
was entrenched at Petersburg and Richmond. Then 
came the evacuation, the unwavering pursuit of Grant 
and Sheridan with their solid lines 150,000 strong, 
the surrender; 175,000 starved and ragged Confeder- 
ate soldiers, all told, laid down their arms at the feet 
of a conquering legion of i ,000,000 men ; — and the two 
armies that had faced each other unflinchingly for four 
long years melted into civilians with mutual respect and 
sympathy. Slavery was abolished, and the Southern 
states were conquered at a cost to the United States of 
three thousand million dollars and a sacrifice of nearly 
six hundred thousand lives. 

10 



Changed Conditions 1 1 

Immediately after the surrender the governor of Mis- 
sissippi was informed that neither the State govern- 
ment organized since 1861, nor the officers appointed 
under that government, nor their official acts vv^ere rec- 
ognized by the President of the United States. A com- 
mand was given to deliver into the possession of the 
Union armies the public archives and every form of 
State property. It was done, and Mississippi stood 
dismantled and dishonored. Every vestige of civil rule 
was thrust from sight. There was not an executive, 
not a judiciary; the right of trial by jury was not al- 
lowed, nor the writ of habeas corpus; there was noth- 
ing that bore the semblance of government except mar- 
tial law which was administered by provost marshals, 
military commissions and freedmen's bureaus. The 
negroes had been taken from the fields by thousands 
and turned into Union soldiers. Those who were left 
were free, and defied the control of their old masters, as 
well as made it difficult for officers to bring them under 
authority. Anarchy triumphed, grinning, red-handed. 
Desperadoes infested the land. Women were afraid to 
leave their front doors without being armed or accom- 
panied by a male escort. Wagons were stopped on the 
public highway and the cotton they were carrying to 
market to supply the wants of needy families, was forci- 
bly taken. Crime swept like a prairie fire over com- 
munities. The constant violations of law were passed 
by unheeded, unpunished, or the penalties were too fee- 
ble to effect fear or prevent recurrence. Industry was 
dead. " The hands " went to the fields with umbrellas 
over their heads and resplendent in yellow buckskin 



12 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

cavalry gloves; they began work when they pleased 
and quit when it suited them. At the same time the 
planter was furnishing the land, paying the taxes and 
insurance, providing lodging, implements, work-stock, 
seed, and giving wages, or a certain proportion of the 
crops, stipulated for by contract. He was himself in 
the throes of readjustment. His precedents were gone ; 
he was as uncertain, and almost as helpless as the black 
man in the midst of his new and untried conditions. 
The land which had been celebrated for its prosperity 
was the habitation of wrecks of human beings and ruins 
of fortunes. All Southern hearts were smitten with 
desolation and gripped with the horror of despair. 
Lovely homes had been destroyed. Thousands of per- 
sons were on the verge of starvation, and many others 
had fled to foreign lands, in voluntary exile. All this 
and far more — unutterable — the struggle to maintain 
slavery cost the South. 

The Federal government, in its emancipation act, 
had set afloat an army of aged and infirm negroes who 
were perfectly helpless, becoming paupers at once on 
receiving their freedom. So in addition to other bur- 
dens the white people were forced, in their extremity, 
to continue to care for these, as when they were slaves. 

As soon as father was physically strong enough to 
perform the trying duty, he went to the negro quarters 
on his plantation, assembled his slaves, and announced 
to them that they were free. There was no wild shout 
of joy or other demonstration of gladness. The deep- 
est gloom prevailed in their ranks and an expression of 
mournful bewilderment settled upon their dusky faces. 



Changed Conditions 13 

They did not understand that strange, sweet word — 
freedom. Poor things ! the EngHsh language had 
never brought to them the faintest definition of liberty 
— that most glorious gift of God. They were stunned. 
What were they to do Where should they go ? What 
would become of them? Who would feed and clothe 
them, and care for them in sickness, when they went out 
from " marster " free ? 

Noticing their consternation and dumb sorrow, fa- 
ther told them that they might stay and work for him 
as hired hands. Some of them did, but the majority 
drifted away, and finally all. 

The record of the devotion of the slaves to their 
owners is deeply touching. 

During the war a band of Federal soldiers filled 
mother's yard, front and back. Sally, one of the plan- 
tation servants, stood calmly surveying them, with 
hands peacefully clasped behind her back, while her 
turbaned head-handkerchief illuminated the scene. An 
officer stalked up to her and demanded to know where 
the silver was hidden. With a lofty air of disdain Sally 
exclaimed : " Silver ! Bless Gord, mister ! yo' doan't 
know dem white folks ! " pointing in the direction of 
" the house," as the master's dwelling was always des- 
ignated in slave parlance, and where at that time mother 
and her little children sat trembling with fear. " Dey 
am de stingiest white folks yo' ebber sot yo' two eyes on. 
Silver! dey ain't nebber had no silver in dere lives! 
Got a fine house ? Sho 'nuff ; but powerful pore inside ! 
Ugh ! / ain't see'd no silver inysdi ! " Walking off with 
infinite disgust, she muttered between her teeth : " Dat 



14 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

Yankee man sho' am foolish if he thinks I'se gwine ter 
tell him whar dat silver am ! " The officer and his men 
moved away convinced by her contempt and earnest- 
ness. Within ten feet of where Sally stood the silver 
lay securely buried. She had helped to put it there. 

A raid of the Union army was expected through 
Madison county. Father gave his sword to Aunt 
Dicey, one of our most devoted allies, and told her to 
hide it, explaining the reason. No more was thought 
of it until General Hardee, a Confederate commander, 
came to the neighborhood to review the troops stationed 
near Vernon, and who, with his staff, spent the previous 
night at our home. The next morning one of the of- 
ficers asked father to lend him a sword, as his own was 
lost and he did not wish to appear on inspection without 
one. Dicey was called to bring the hidden weapon. 
She marched in, bearing it triumphant. The scabbard 
was rotten and the blade covered with rust. The old 
woman had buried it. 

A year after the slaves were given their freedom they 
had a great meeting at one of their churches near Ver- 
non. A delegation waited on father to invite him to 
attend. Having always been a friend of the black race, 
he accepted their courtesy, although ignorant of the 
nature of the gathering. On arriving at the appointed 
place, he found a vast crowd assembled : among them 
was a body of negro cavalry, charging to and fro with 
becoming military hauteur. Father was escorted to the 
platform where the orators of the occasion were seated. 
These consisted of several Republican white men and 
one or two black ones. Speaker after speaker was pre- 



Changed Conditions 15 

sented to the audience and made flaming orations on the 
subject of emancipation. It dawned on father, by de- 
grees, that this was the anniversary of the negroes 
freedom and that he was to participate in its celebration. 
At last he was introduced without a word of explana- 
tion to him or to the black masses in the foreground. 
Fortunately he had entered into the spirit of the meet- 
ing with enthusiasm. With face aglow with emotion of 
the holiest character and voice strong with a manly 
and sincere sympathy, he said : " My friends, I honor 
you for rejoicing over the acquisition of your freedom. 
If I had been born a slave and the shackles had been 
broken from my hands I would make every day a time 
of exultation, and every night upon bended knees would 
I thank God for my liberty." 

The Constitutional Convention of 1865, composed of 
Southern gentlemen and their sympathizers, met and a 
universal rehabilitation began. 

A horror of negro suffrage was expressed and the 
convention refused to ratify the Fourteenth Amend- 
ment to the Constitution of the United States. How- 
ever, the Ordinance of Secession was declared null and 
void ; slavery was acknowledged to be dead, and proper 
adjustment of laws was made. 

Then came the days of reconstruction with their at- 
tendant terrors, Mississippi was the first to conform 
to the new order. Other states did not hold constitu- 
tional conventions until weeks after hers had adjourned. 
In the course of the three years following that event 
the Republican party was dominant in Mississippi. 

By order of Congress a constitutional convention 



1 6 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

was called which met in Jackson on the 7th day of Jan- 
uary, 1868. This body was a motley assemblage. It 
has gone down in history as the " Black and Tan 
Convention." It was composed largely of negroes, 
many of them wholly illiterate, direct from the cotton 
fields, but belonging principally to the class of barbers, 
hotel waiters and livery stable hirelings. With the 
exception of a small sprinkling of Mississippi Demo- 
crats the other members were Republican white men 
from the North ; most of whom had failed to command 
the respect of the people from whose midst they had 
come, — and who were held in complete disrepute by the 
Southerners. The entire expense of the convention 
has been safely estimated at not less than a quarter of a 
million dollars. A special tax, real and personal, was 
voted to be levied upon the state, to pay the expenses of 
the convention. 

" The present and all previous constitutions of the 
state of Mississippi " were " declared to be repealed 
and annulled." Enfranchising the negro was ap- 
proved and every effort was made to obliterate the color 
line in social, civil and political life. Thousands of 
white citizens of the state had been disfranchised by 
provisions of the 39th and 40th Congresses ; and now 
the convention of 1868 imposed an additional oath of 
affirmation on the voters before they would be permitted 
to express their principles by the ballot. 

The taxes levied were exorbitant, apportioned on as- 
sessments made at the will of corrupt officials. Land 
was valued at $100 per acre, which would not have 
brought $20 if Ojffered in the market. In consequence, 



Changed Conditions 17 

millions of dollars worth of property was published 
under tax sales, which was virtual confiscation. The 
United States government had placed a tax on all cot- 
ton raised in Mississippi. This tax was as high as $10 
a bale. Afterward it was disallowed, and an effort was 
made to secure the refunding of the tax money, which 
was not accomplished. Imagine the struggle for bread 
when the people paid a tax of $10 per 500 pounds on 
the product which constituted their chief means of sup- 
port ! 

The Republicans were in the majority in the follow- 
ing legislature. They occupied all the state offices and 
sent their representatives to Congress. Then began, 
in full force, the reign of the " carpet-bagger " and the 
" scalawag."* 

B. K. Bruce, the Mississippi negro who afterwards 
occupied so many prominent positions under the Fed- 
eral government, was elected United States senator. 
The lieutenant-governor was a negro; also the state 
superintendent of education, and other important offices 
were filled by colored men. Sometimes every member 
of the board of supervisors was a negro. Under this 
dark-tinted regime a monument was erected in Jack- 
son by the legislature to the memory of a negro man, 
who had filled the office of secretary of state. 

The Republican legislature of 1870 ratified the Four- 



* A carpet-bagger was a Northerner who had come into the 
South with all his possessions in a carpet-bag ; in plain Eng- 
lish, a penniless adventurer. A scalawag was a Southerner 
who deserted his political affiliations for the spoils of the Re- 
publican party. 



1 8 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

teenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution 
of the United States. 

Adelbert Ames, of Massachusetts, a son-in-law of 
General Ben Butler, was appointed military governor of 
Mississippi in 1868. His administration was charac- 
terized by bitter hostility to the whites, which cul- 
minated in race riots. The intolerable acts of the gov- 
ernor sealed his doom. Twenty-one articles of im- 
peachment were preferred against him when the legisla- 
ture of 1876 met and all of them were sustained. He 
sent in his resignation as governor of Mississippi, which 
was accepted, and the case dismissed. 

Articles of impeachment were also filed against the 
negro state superintendent of education and the negro 
lieutenant-governor. The former resigned at once and 
left the state; the latter stood trial and was found 
guilty. 

The struggle for white supremacy had lasted ten 
years. The entering wedge for Democratic sovereignty 
had been made in the autumn of 1875 when, at the 
election, a compromise had been effected in the way 
of a division of offices between the Republicans and 
the Democrats. Regardless of the turn affairs had 
taken the energy of the carpet-baggers and scalawags 
fagged not a moment. Night meetings were held with 
the colored men, in which they were urged to stand by 
the Republican party as the one that had brought them 
freedom, and were terrified with the threat of being 
forced back into slavery if they voted otherwise. With 
a few rare exceptions the negroes defined freedom as 
the liberty to be idle. For years they entertained the 



Changed Conditions 19 

idea that the lands of the South were to be divided 
among them — " forty acres of land and a mule, the gift 
of the Government," — and they rested in that hope. 
Hordes of them wandered through the country, beating 
drums and sowing seeds of discontent among those who 
were peaceably inclined and given to habits of industry. 
.The masses of them were destitute. 

The election of 1877 was carried by the Democrats. 
There was no organized opposition, but every negro 
knew that he was safer in his cotton-patch than any- 
where else. Every man felt that he who would longer 
submit to the rule of an inferior race deserved to be a 
slave. Anglo-Saxon blood, North or South, is the 
blood of free men. 

In the enfranchisement of the negro the Federal gov- 
ernment laid a heavy curse on the black race. License 
is not liberty, nor the ballot a blessing unless it has be- 
come the expression of a moral principle; and this 
cannot be until men have been trained to the holy du- 
ties of citizenship, and have caught the spirit of an in- 
telligent loyalty to all that for which a righteous gov- 
ernment is the standard-bearer. 



CHAPTER III 

READJUSTMENT 

The human soul is like a bird born in a cage. Nothing 
can deprive it of its natural longings, or obliterate the mys- 
terious remembrance of its heritage. — Epes Sargent. 

It seemed impossible for father and mother to realize 
the terrible change that had come into their fortunes. 
They continued to live extravagantly for the first few 
years after the war, keeping the same number of house- 
servants and giving them exorbitant wages ; also to the 
field-hands who were hired by the month. After awhile 
the last dollar was spent and the last servant dismissed. 
The land that had yielded bountiful harvests worked by 
the slaves, now brought a pittance rented to the f reed- 
men. The struggle for bread became hard both for the 
laborer and the land-owner. Affairs were growing des- 
perate. Then mortgages were unhappily entered into, 
and the inevitable failure to meet them was followed 
by foreclosure. Of all our former possessions only four 
hundred acres of land, around the old home, were left 
us. 

Among the many destructive agencies to the attain- 
ment of independence were the lien laws instituted in 
the South at the close of the civil war. Before a spool 
of thread or a pound of flour could be bought on credit 

20 



Readjustment 21 

the purchaser had to give a lien on available property — 
cattle, horses or land. Failing these he mortgaged his 
unplanted crop for supplies during the year. The rate 
of interest as well as the merchant's profits on goods 
was enormous, usually as high as loo or 200 per cent. 
At the end of the year the buyer found himself in debt 
or escaped with only the clothes on his back. Although 
the premiums on money have increased, the lien laws 
are still in force and are a prime cause of retarded pros- 
perity in the cotton states. One afternoon a young 
brother of mine met an old colored man returning from 
town, where he had been settling up the year's account 
with his merchant. Hearing a half suppressed soliloquy 
on the part of the negro, the boy asked : *' What is the 
trouble, * Uncle ' Willis?" 

Without looking up he exclaimed disconsolately : " I 
knewed it ! I knewed it ! " 

"Knew what, 'Uncle' Willis?" 

" Knewed I warn't gwine ter pay fo' dat mule. I 
knewed it all erlong ! " 

Alas ! for " Uncle " Willis, and alas ! for thousands 
of others who 3^et know that a penniless state will be the 
result of their hard year's labor. 

In the midst of the social and financial convulsions 
that surrounded us in those sad days, father stood fac- 
ing the ruin about him with right hand hopelessly in- 
jured and depressed continually by a frail constitution. 
Mother's health was wretched ; she was a martyr to neu- 
ralgia. Worst of all, neither of them knew how to 
work, nor how to manage so as to make a dollar, nor 
how to keep it after it was gained. Children were be- 



22 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

ing added to the family and sorrows multiplied. My 
oldest brother, a boy of brilliant promise, was taken 
ill at boarding school and died in his fifteenth year, soon 
after returning home. While my only sister was at col- 
lege in Oxford, Mississippi, she formed a romantic at- 
tachment for a young University student, whom she 
married when she was but sixteen. Although just five 
years old at the time, the memory of that wedding was 
indelibly impressed upon my mind: the guests, the 
handsome bridegroom, my lovely sister in her bridal 
robes, my head aching, and eyes swollen from much 
weeping, the good-byes, the roll of the carriage down 
the long avenue of cedars to the gate, the after-loneliness 
and gloom of the house. Just four years later, when I 
returned from school, one afternoon, father folded me in 
his arms and sobbing carried me to the parlor where 
the still form of my sister was lying in her coffin ; — the 
child-wife, just twenty years old, and the mother of 
two little daughters ! Very soon these went away from 
us with their young father to establish another home. 

The death of my sister left me the oldest child in the 
family. There were three small brothers. The iron 
entered my soul very early in this great battle we call 
" life." I looked about me with wide-open eyes, full 
of comprehension and a heart full of bitterness. 
Mother's father, William Owens, who had been a Mis- 
sissippi planter, died when she was a child of ten. 
When only three, her mother, a native Kentuckian of 
French descent, passed into the shadow-land. Mother 
was reared by a married sister who kept her in board- 
ing schools from an early age. She attended an acad- 



Readjustment 23 

emy in Nashville and spent her last school-days at the 
Episcopal Institute for young ladies in Columbia, Tenn. 
Returning to Mississippi, she married father when she 
was twenty years old. 

Mother was endowed with a strong mind and added 
to her mental acquirement by constant reading of the 
best literature. Throughout her book-filled life she has 
followed national issues and the world's history with 
keen penetration. She was ever a devoted Methodist 
and a profound Bible student, a staunch friend, an ador- 
ing mother, unselfish, independent in thought and 
action, energetic in spirit, swift in movement, brief but 
positive in speech, unswerving in purpose. Her rich 
brunette beauty made her a belle in girlhood. Though 
fortified by a nature broad and noble enough to endure 
bravely many severe strokes of unhappy destiny, yet 
the loss of her fortune was a blow from which she 
never recovered. She has lived in retirement, never but 
once in thirty-four years leaving the seclusion of her 
home except to attend church, to minister to the sick 
or to pay an occasional visit to friends in the neighbor- 
hood. Like thousands of other heroic women of the 
South, however, she did not fold her hands in idleness 
nor weep her eyes blind over the inexorable, but, with 
admirable courage, went to work. Silk dresses were 
displaced by cotton ones, the parlor was deserted for 
the kitchen, the piano for the sewing machine. The 
grind was upon us. We were too pressed in finances 
to hire anything done but laundry-work and wood-cut- 
ting. 

When nine years old I put my small "shoulders to the 



24 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

wheel " to ease mother's burdens. For four years I 

worked systematically and attended school regularly. 

Mother's frequent attacks of neuralgia usually pros- 

, trated her for a week. On such occasions the cooking 

and house-work fell to my lot in addition to other duties. 

If a low moan issued from mother's room early in the 

morning my heart sank, for it boded no good to me. 

Hurrying from bed a rush would be made fof our old 

kitchen, twenty yards from the dwelling, very spacious 

and very uncomfortable, where efforts were begun at 

once to build a fire in the stove preparatory to cooking. 

In winter, blowing my hands to keep them from getting 

numb ; in summer sweltering with the heat and fuming 

with disgust. 

Affairs went on in this way for two years. One 
morning I was trying to get breakfast in a hurry, as it 
was late, an unusual amount of work was on hand, and 
my dress had to be changed for school. In attempting 
to turn some batter-cakes the hot lard splashed on my 
fingers, burning them cruelly. With a loud cry, I sat 
down on the floor, folded my hands above my head and 
rocked to and fro in an agony of body and spirit. Sud- 
denly a light step entered the door. There stood my 
oldest brother, a little fellow just two years my junior, 
with an expression of pity strongly tinctured with scorn 
playing about his half-smiling lips. " Crying, sister? " 
he asked coolly ; " Oh, yes ! " was sobbed in reply; " IVe 
burnt my fingers and ruined the batter-cakes, and it's 
so late,— and there's so much work to be done and get 
to school. O, how dreadful it is to have to cook! " and 
the swaying was begun again in despairing misery. 



Readjustment 25 

" Sister ! " how solemn the blue eyes looked, how dig- 
nified the boyish figure. '^ Sister!" — with increasing 
emphasis — " I have no respect for a girl who is eleven 
years old and doesn't know how to cook. If you will 
go into the house I will get breakfast and take it into 
the dining room." Frantic with delight, but maintain- 
ing due outward composure, '' Well," I answered, 
" suppose we make a bargain ? If you will cook every 
time mother gets sick I will tell you one of Dickens' 
stories or one of Sir Walter Scott's novels as regularly 
as the nights roll around." " All right ! I'll do it ! " 
was the ready assent ; — and the compact was sealed. It 
was never broken. 

As the days went by and mother's health failed to im- 
prove, and my work failed correspondingly to grow 
lighter, the younger boys were pressed into service by 
similar agreements. My second brother was to wash 
the dishes and help with outdoor labor. The youngest 
was to do the sweeping as far as his stature and 
strength permitted. This condition of domestic engi- 
neering continued until the time came for me to go away 
to school. Every night after our lessons were learned 
for the next day, we gathered around the hearth in 
mother's room and I told the boys the promised stories ; 
going into smallest details ; dwelling on peculiarities of 
characters, painting minutely their environment, wax- 
ing humorous or pathetic according to the situation ; all 
the while watching closely the faces of my auditors. 
There they would sit for hours, my little brothers, lis- 
tening intently to every word that was uttered ; at times 
clapping their chubby hands with intense enjoyment, or 



26 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

doubling up their small bodies in convulsive laughter, 
or holding their lips together with fore-finger and 
thumb to prevent too boisterous an explosion of hilarity ; 
at other times allowing the great tears to roll down 
their cheeks, or with bowed heads sobbing aloud. My 
precious little comrades! They constituted my first 
audience, and it was the most sympathetic and inspiring 
that has ever greeted me in all the after years. 

One day the announcement was made that a baby 
had been born in our home, who was to be our brother. 
The feeling of indignation that swelled into my inmost 
being surpasses description. Rallying the three boys 
in the dining-room a caucus was held. Our ages were 
respectively eleven, nine, seven and five years. I was 
self-elected chairman on the momentous occasion. 
" Boys," my voice came trembling with growing wrath, 
" a child has been born into our family. He will have 
to be supported. We are disgraced. We were too poor to 
have any more children. It was just as much as we could 
do to get along with us four. We must do something to 
show how angry we are about this baby's coming to add 
to our troubles." Forthwith we piled all the chairs to- 
gether in a towering heap and knocked them down by 
two's and three's, breaking several, and making an aw- 
ful din. After the fury of the tempest had subsided we 
met in council again and took a solemn vow never to 
look at the intruder until we were forced, by unhappy 
circumstances, to do so; and we never did until we 
learned that mother was about to die. 

A week later Fannie, one of our ex-slaves, came to 
the rear gallery and said : *' Baby ! " — all of our ante- 



Readjustment 27 

bellum negroes called me " Baby," as I was the last 
infant born in the family before the war closed. " Baby, 
Mistis is pow'ful bad off an' yo pa, he say ' go fo' de 
doctor ! '" I waited for no further command, nor took 
time to search for my sun-bonnet, which was usually 
sewed on by mother to preserve my complexion, and as • 
regularly cut off by some negro woman at my urgent 
solicitation, but ran rapidly up the hill to Vernon for 
the neighboring physician. On my return, the boys and 
I formed a procession and marched into mother's room 
with shamed faces and bursting hearts. We were all 
nearly grown, however, before we forgave the baby for 

being born. 

The comradeship begun at the hearthstone with my 
three brothers continued. They were ever my most de- 
voted friends and enthusiastic allies. The oldest always 
camic to my assistance in domestic matters and even 
after he had become a man and entered into business 
he would give out the meals for me on his visits home, 
if mother was ill. He would keep my breakfast warm 
if I did not care to arise when the others did, saying 
always tenderly, after a gentle tap on my door, " Do 
you want to sleep this morning, sister? Very well, I 
will attend to everything." We four shared every hard- 
ship and rejoiced together in every happiness. In sum- 
mer we went wading and fishing ; the boys chivalrously 
taking off their jackets for me to wipe my feet on, and 
baiting my hooks. When we were older we went hunt- 
ing. They carried my gun but I did my own shooting. 
Their unselfish acts were returned by me in the intimi- 
dation of rowdy boys at school whenever domineering 



28 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

the little fellows was attempted. In all the association 
of our lives my three companions were always loving 
and generous to me, never harshly criticizing any action, 
however absurd, or the causes I espoused later on, 
whether or not they were in accord with the spirit of 
them. The affinity between my second brother and my- 
self was most pronounced. We read Shakspeare to- 
gether, had long walks and confidential talks, discussing 
books and life and laying great plans for the future. 
We were both ambitious for the widest culture, and as 
the chances narrowed, shutting out every hope of a 
liberal education we became more closely united in 
spirit through our common sorrow. Mother taught my 
brothers that as they had but one sister they should 
render to her the highest homage, — and they did, most 
loyally. By degrees every species of rough work of 
which they could relieve me was taken from my hands. 
If an article was wanted at the table a boy arose to get 
it. If a sacrifice was to be endured — an old garment 
longer worn — a choice bit of food surrendered, — the 
boys undertook the renunciation. Father set them the 
example in his exquisite courtesy. His considerateness 
for woman never failed him. How sweet that old 
home-life was ! — the manly gentleness of my brothers, 
the royal graciousness of my father, the tender devotion 
of my mother ! 

A law was passed by the legislature of Mississippi 
in 1846 establishing a system of public schools. Al- 
most nothing was accomplished, however, up to 1861, 
then, of course, the Confederacy absorbed every other 
question. In the South generally the attention of the 



Readjustment 29 

people was beginning to be drawn toward public edu- 
cation just before the opening of the civil war; but, 
during the black days of reconstruction there was little 
inclination to encourage a system of education that 
would have to be supported for colored as well as white 
children, the taxes for the purpose being paid by the 
latter almost entirely. Especially, while the^ whites 
were being threatened by the government at Washing- 
ton with co-education of the races. 

The Republican convention of 1868 made provisions 
for the revival of the system of free schools which went 
into operation in 1870. 

The nearly tax-crushed people objected to an educa- 
tional law made by a legislature composed of ex-slaves, 
few of whom could read, and of carpet-baggers and 
scalawags,— and administered by an alien, non-tax-pay- 
ing governor and superintendent of education. With 
such a revival it is marvelous that the free school found 
any tolerance in Southern life. 

Public schools were a costly luxury in those days. 
The whites paid the expenses of public instruction and, 
as much as possible, educated their own children in 
private schools. If a public school teacher had but one 
pupil he drew his full salary as punctually as if there 
were a hundred in attendance. 

Among my first teachers was a young woman whom 
mother boarded in order to give me instruction. Her 
time was divided between reading Byron and drilHng 
me in the multiplication table in vast disproportion. 
Afterward my public school life began. The patrons 
of the Vernon school selected a teacher for a certain 



30 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

term, and thought, of course, that the Board of Educa- 
tion, although composed of men of a different poHtical 
party, would have regard to their opinion and appoint 
their choice. Instead a strange lady from Maine was 
given the place. Every parent felt grossly insulted by 
such a high-handed measure, and refused to send their 
children to school. Father said he stopped me on prin- 
ciple. 

I was growing up like a weed, and heard nothing dis- 
cussed but Republicans. Conjectures began to form in 
my brain as to what sort of creatures they could be. I 
heard them called " black," but one day a Northern 
man, who was said to be a Republican, passed suf- 
ficiently near for me to discern that he was as fair as 
the proverbial lily and shaped like an Apollo. Grad- 
ually my cranium cast out its terrifying myths, and 
reached an adjustment so far as that Republicans looked 
like other men, but should never be spoken to, and must 
be shunned like the small-pox. 

For a whole term the new teacher went to the school- 
house, stayed the number of hours required by law, and 
drew a salary of $75 at the end of each month. She 
had only one pupil ; he was her nephew. The follow- 
ing year the political storm had abated ; the Democrats 
were regaining power. Patrons could now elect the 
teachers of their schools. The quiet dignity, and su- 
perior attainments of the Northern lady had made their 
impress. Fair play was not neglected when the South- 
ern men's turn came ; the patrons who had rebelled and 
seceded when coercion was afoot, now selected this 
same teacher for the next session. 



Readjustment 31 

That was the beginning of a bright era for me. As 
soon as Mrs. Fenderson was met, with her pure, sweet 
face, and gracious, elegant bearing, my heart was laid 
at her feet. We became close friends. On rainy days 
when there would be no pupils at the school-house, but 
the small nephew and me, my beloved teacher would 
take us home with her to '' hear our lessons." She lived 
on a plantation not far from ours, with a widowed sister, 
Mrs. Woodman, whose husband, a colonel in the Fed- 
eral army, had died soon after coming to Mississippi. 
They were beautiful women, and so pathetic in their 
loneliness. It was touching to see how yearningly they 
reached out after me, only a child, treating me as courte- 
ously and as lovingly as if I were a distinguished guest 
of grown-up proportions. They would talk about their 
far-away New England home, describing the customs 
of the people, so unlike the Southerners ; show me pic- 
tures of noted persons and places ; read to me from mag- 
azines and attractive books and feed me on delicious 
" buns " and " cookies," names unknown on a Missis- 
sippi menu. I began to think there was no spot in all 
the world so alluring as the dwelling of these friends, 
nor any human beings as lovely. My first wide out- 
look upon humanity was gained through them, and they 
brought to my vigilant soul the awakening of my first 
inspirations. 

Our delightful intercourse and mutual devotion con- 
tinued without a break until two years later, when Mrs. 
Fenderson fell a victim to the dread malarial fever. 
When her tired body was laid away in its last resting 
place it was in a land of strangers, for unto the end she 



32 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

had lived in unbroken isolation. All the light seemed to 
die out of life for me. To this day I mourn her loss 
and revere her memory, with deepest gratitude and with 
a love unspeakable ; but, with Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney, 
" I believe that there is no away ; that no love, no life 
goes ever from us ; it goes as He went that it may come 
again, deeper and closer and surer; and be with us al- 
ways, even unto the end of the world." 



CHAPTER IV 

THE YOUNG LADIES' ACADEMY 

There ! little girl ; don't cry ! 

They have broken your heart, I know; 

And the rainbow gleams 

Of your youthful dreams 

Are things of the long ago; 
But heaven holds all for which you sigh, 
There ! little girl ; don't cry ! 

— ^James Whitcomb Riley. 

Soon after the close of the war, nearly every old fam- 
ily moved away from the Vernon neighborhood except 
father's and that of one of his brothers. Three or four 
worthy, agreeable ones took their places, but the major- 
ity of the new-comers were poor, unlettered people, with 
strong class prejudices and an intense jealousy of the 
planter-caste. The splendid ante-bellum homes were 
rented to these and to negroes. Our social circle had 
pitifully narrowed down. We were literally shut in 
from the world with nothing to relieve the pressure 
but books. I read, read, read, — English and American 
poets, standard fiction, travels, histories, biographies and 
philosophies. So, in the midst of poverty and desola- 
tion, my mind was being fed with the very manna of in- 
tellectual life. Reading was done with pencil in hand 

S3 



34 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

and note book and dictionary conveniently near. The 
habit proved invaluable. 

Father was struggling heroically with adversity. His 
first venture at bread winning was in the insurance busi- 
ness ; but the returns were paltry enough to make him 
discard it for the rejected profession of his youth. He 
studied law, and secured a license to practice in the 
Magistrates' courts. His clients were poor and troubled 
and father's missionary spirit so large that the gains 
from the legal calling were as meagre as from the in- 
surance business ; and, after a few years it was aban- 
doned. Agencies for several plantations later fell into 
his hands and eventually he returned to his planting 
interests. 

The boys soon became old enough to work in the field. 
Never having been trained as plowmen, their first ef- 
forts were crude, developing the most ludicrously 
crooked rows of corn and "cotton. Father was dis- 
gusted with the result of their attempts, and, in des- 
peration, took hold of the plow, one spring morning, to 
teach them precision. " I am ashamed that the outcome 
of your work is so wretched, after living on a planta- 
tion all your lives. Let me show you how to manage a 
plow ! " he exclaimed, grasping the implement with 
stern determination. It was heavier than he thought — 
he had never touched one before, and, never after, it is 
well to add — and the mouth of the mule tougher than 
he dreamed. Away went the plow ! up and down, right 
and left, here and there; demolishing the serpentine 
rows and scattering clods and confusion broadcast. The 
boys were convulsed with laughter, which, however, 



The Young Ladies* Academy 35 

they wisely concealed. Father kept on trying to con- 
quer the mule and the plow until exhaustion came. 
Throwing down the lines, he said, very bravely, " Now, 
boys, you see how it ought to be done. Never let me 
hear of your failing again ! " and walked away with as- 
sumed stateliness to hide his crestfallen condition : back 
to his den and his law books. Dear father ! he was born 
for happier abodes than a Mississippi plantation. The 
post-bellum world was too much for him. He was not 
alone in his position. Thousands of ex-slave-holders 
throughout the South were grappling vainly with con- 
ditions that " try men's souls." 

My father's youngest brother, " uncle Kinch," as he 
was familiarly known to us and to the world, had moved 
from Vernon to Canton; the latter a beautiful town,, the 
county seat of Madison. Here he and his wife, " aunt 
Henrietta," kept open house in the charming home 
where they had established themselves. They were 
both happy-hearted, fond of bright company, devoted to 
music and blessed with a handsome competency. My 
aunt had inherited a goodly portion from her father's 
estate in Louisiana, just after the w^ar, when the cotton 
planters of Mississippi were enduring terrible financial 
depression. Uncle Kinch had lost a leg at Cold-Harbor, 
in the Confederate service, but this misfortune did not 
imbitter his spirit nor check the flow of his brilliant 
wit that had descended to him from a long line of Irish 
ancestry. His captivating jokes and hail-fellow-well- 
met air attracted the young people in a wide relation- 
ship; his home became headquarters for every one in 
search of a royal time. He had no children : one of his 



36 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

adopted daughters was married, the other a young lady 
in society: but his numerous nieces and nephews were 
taken into his affections, all called " honey " and treated 
with lavish cordiality. When I reached the age of 
thirteen, my public school course was finished. At this 
turning point of the way, uncle Kinch invited me to 
make his house my home and attend the Young Ladies' 
Academy for as long as father would be able to bear 
the expense of tuition fees. The hospitality was gladly 
accepted. In a few days, my little trunk was packed. 
I had been making my own clothes for four years, so 
did not go away hopelessly ignorant of how to take care 
of myself. Good-byes were said to mother and the boys, 
and early one September morning father and I climbed 
into the buggy — the carriage had long since been dis- 
posed of — with my baggage securely settled at our feet 
and, started on the long journey of twenty miles 
through the country to Canton. There was at that time 
no nearer railway station. Those lonely, lengthy drives, 
which were so often enjoyed with father, stand out 
prominently in my life's history. It was in these hours 
that we had sweet communion and laid the foundations 
of an enduring friendship. He talked to me unreserv- 
edly of the most sacred things in his experience, and 
philosophized upon human existence, upon science, re- 
ligion, politics, interspersing his remarks with kindly 
advice and tender sentiment. Father had the happy 
faculty of calling out the best that was in one, and in 
turn fascinating his companion with the seemingly lim- 
itless resources of his well-stored mind and broad 
Christianity. He had always been a companion to his 



The Young Ladies* Academy 37 

children, drawing us closer year after year, entertaining 
us with incidents from the lives of great men and 
women and of obscure though beautiful characters 
whom he had known or of whom he had heard, thus 
inciting us to high aspirations ; best of all, holding up 
before us daily, though unconsciously, the " white 
flower of a blameless life." 

In later years it was a source of intense gratification 
to me to know that my father was devoid of a sugges- 
tion of sectional animosity. He had the highest regard 
for the true-hearted people of the North and a cordial 
admiration for their sterling worth and wonderful ac- 
complishments. The civil war left him with a profound 
respect for the valor of his opponents. He told of their 
heroism with enthusiasm. After the battle of Leesburg, 
his company, with three others, was ordered to conduct 
the prisoners captured to Centerville, Virginia. They 
left Leesburg at twelve o'clock at night. It was com- 
paratively warm at the start, but by daybreak it had 
become severely cold. Some time during the following 
morning, father noticed among the captives a mere 
youth — not more than sixteen years old — who was with- 
out shoes or socks. On inspection it was found that he 
was nude with the exception of an army overcoat. 
Upon being questioned, he stated that when the Con- 
federates drove the Union army from the field back to 
the Potomac, he had pulled his clothes off and jumped 
into the river with many others to swim to an island 
where the Federal troops had landed, and where he 
hoped still to find some of his comrades. " When we 
got into the river," he said, " the Confederates opened 



38 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

fire, and to keep from being shot, I returned to the Vir- 
ginia shore. When I looked around for my clothes 
they were gone." That bare-foot boy, covered only 
with an old army overcoat, had marched for hours un- 
complainingly over the stony roads of Virginia in a 
temperature at freezing point, while others in the ranks, 
well-clad, were complaining heavily. Father made an 
effort to secure some clothing for the young Federal 
hero, but failing, had him put into a wagon and carried 
the remainder of the way. 

Along with his unprejudiced regard for the Northern 
people, father cherished an ardent love for the land of 
his birth and was eloquent over the courage, patriotism 
and pathetic endurance of the Southern soldiers. 
Among the numerous instances, illustrative of their un- 
selfish attachment to the cause for which they were will- 
ing to lay down their lives, he told, with especial pride, 
of a noble exhibition of loyalty on the part of a young 
officer from his own state. While on the Peninsula, 
near Richmond, Lieutenant Brown, son of ex-Governor 
A. G. Brown, of Mississippi, the latter at the time a 
senator in the Confederate Congress, was detailed by 
the colonel of his reg^iment to s^o to Richmond on busi- 
ness for the army. He went to father, who was lieuten- 
ant colonel, and asked him to secure his release as the 
1 8th Mississippi was expected every day to enter into 
an engagement and he did not want the news sent home 
that he was not in the battle. The young lieutenant 
could have executed his commission and had a gay time 
at the Confederate capital, avoiding all the dangers of 



The Young Ladies' Academy 39 

war, but he preferred to face death in his country's serv- 
ice rather than have his devotion questioned. 

Going to Canton with father was not my first separa- 
tion from home. My aunt and uncle had received many 
visits from me since my childhood, so it was not hard 
to go. Besides, I was hungry to be in a school of a 
high grade, and was willing to suffer to accomplish it. 
Professor Magruder, a very scholarly man and able 
teacher, was Principal of the Academy. Associated 
with him as assistants were two cultivated women. My 
examinations were safely passed and admission was 
given to the Freshman class. A solemn mental resolu- 
tion was taken to make the best of my opportunities. 
All the force of my intellectual and physical being was 
brought to bear upon my studies with an energy that 
knew no stint nor relaxation. Midnight found me at 
my books, and it was a rare occurrrence for me to go 
upon the play-ground at recess. Every morning I arose 
with the sun, wrote a diary of the preceding day and 
looked again over my lessons. 

On Saturdays essays were prepared for the follow- 
ing Friday afternoons. I began to dream dreams of 
graduation; afterwards of going North to a Woman's 
College, and later to Germany for further culture in 
certain branches. Alas ! for my fine schemes ; destined 
to premature destruction ! After being at the Academy 
for only two years, father was compelled to take me 
home because he was unable longer to pay the monthly 
tuition of five dollars. My humiliation was the most 
crushing, and my disappointment the keenest, crudest. 



40 A Slaveholder's Daughtei 

that can come to me in this Hfe. I could not cry. The 
fountains of tears were dried up by the deadly east- 
wind of despair that was sweeping over me. It would 
have been folly to rail at my unhappy fate ; it would 
only have exhausted my vitality. It would have been 
sinful to upbraid father; he would have given me mil- 
lions if he had possessed so much ; he did not have an 
extra dollar, and was probably suffering much more 
than I. Besides, the boys were growing rapidly, and 
the oldest must be given at least one year at the Uni- 
versity, and every possible economy must be practised 
to accomplish that object. 

/ had never heard of a woman zvorking to pay her 
way through school Numerous instances of men ac- 
quiring an education by hard labor had been related to 
me, but never of a woman. All the women who were 
known to me personally, or through books, or tradi- 
tion, had their bills paid by male relatives, and made 
fancy work, and visited, and danced, and played on 
the piano, or did something else equally feminine and 
equally conventional, and all were equally dependent 
and equally contented, — at any rate, asked no questions. 
Industrial institutes and colleges where poor girls could 
work their way through were not in existence, and the 
doors of the State University, where tuition was free, 
were then open only to boys. There was nothing in 
Mississippi for young women except high-priced board- 
ing schools and '* female " academies. It is humiliating 
to women for colleges, academies and boarding schools 
established for their education to be called " female." 
There is no sex in institutions of learning. The word 



The Young Ladies' Academy 41 

*' woman " is strong and dignified and suggests courte- 
ous consideration. " Female " is weak and almost in- 
sulting. It stands now as the exponent of the inferior 
position of women as early conceptions of the nature 
and province of women are illustrated in the sculpture 
and painting of the old masters. 

There is a statue in the great cathedral at Pisa rep- 
resenting the temptation of Eve where the serpent has 
the head of a woman ; and upon the ceiling of the Sistine 
Chapel at Rome, in Michael Angelo's marvelous pro- 
duction, the devil is painted with a woman's body down 
to the waist while the remainder of his satanic majesty 
is in the form of a reptile. 

If the thought of zvorking to continue my education 
had entered my brain, which it did not, it would have 
been throttled at its inception, for my family would 
have considered it an eternal disgrace for me to have 
worked publicly. It is true that for four years I had been 
in a pitiless tread-mill, but it was at home; the world 
did not know of it; and money, that degrading sub- 
stance, had not been received for my labor. Household 
drudgery and public work were very different ques- 
tions. The former was natural and unavoidable; the 
latter was monstrous and impossible. I was fairly 
bound to the rock of hopelessness by the cankered chains 
of a false conventionality, and sacrificed for lack of a 
precedent. 

Of all unhappy sights, the most pitiable is that of a 
human life, rich in possibilities and strong with divine 
yearnings for better things than it has known, atrophy- 
ing in the prison house of blind and palsied custom ; — 



42 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

because there is no one in the passing throng brave and 
great enough to break the bars and " let the oppressed 
go free," — into the larger liberty where God meant that 
all His creatures should live and grow and shine. 



CHAPTER V 

STORMS OF THE SOUL 

We are haunted by an ideal life, and it is because we have 
within us the beginning and the possibility of it.— Phillips 
Brooks. 

My early and invincible love of reading, I would not ex- 
change for the treasures of India.— Gibbon. 

Since the close of the civil war as complete a change 
had taken place in the South as followed the revolution 
in France of the latter part of the eighteenth century. 
Under the new regime which began with the liberation 
of over 4,000,000 slaves the upper and the middle 
classes have become amalgamated by the action of the 
elements of circumstance. 

Many of the old families, boasting a long line of 
descent from blue-blooded and distinguished ancestors, 
soon were the most sorely pressed financially. Thou- 
sands of middle-aged— and younger— men had come 
home from the last battle-field maimed by wounds or 
weakened in health by privations. When they entered 
the gloom of lost fortunes, added to the sorrows of a 
lost cause, they quickly sank under the triple weight. 
Hundreds of them were followed to the grave by com- 
munities that sorely felt the need of their ripe judg- 
ment, their accustomed leadership. The stress of pov- 

43 



44 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

erty, the paralysis of indolence and the want of purpose 
benumbed the energies and stultified the pride of other 
descendants of the old slave-holders, many of whom 
bore the pitiless stamp of incapacity to wrest success 
out of new conditions. 

The middle classes were equal to the emergency. Ad- 
justment is easier than readjustment. Trained to activ- 
ities they sprang rapidly to the front, becoming posses- 
sors of wealth and leaders in church and state. The 
inevitable in social life has developed. Marriage into 
the higher class followed as a matter of course with 
the middle, for the one wanted prestige and the other 
money. The distinctions of half a century ago have 
gradually lost their outlines. The " strenuous life " of 
the day now engrosses the mind of the Southerner more 
than the ancient " family tree." 

Next to the destruction of caste, the most radical 
change that has followed in the wake of the surrender 
of the Confederate armies is that young Southern men 
and women have learned that work is honorable. Idle- 
ness has grown to be a shame. No boy and girl can 
now hope to realize their highest destiny except through 
hard, earnest toil of hands or brain. The unsafe and 
unnatural code of the manorial leisure of other days 
vanished with slavery. This transition of sentiment, 
however, has been the slow growth of years. The blos- 
soming '' of the tree " whose " leaves " are " for the 
healing of the Nations " had scarcely begun when my 
feet stood on the threshold of eager life, — wrestling in 
strong agony with hopeless but unconquerable purposes. 

One of the most unfortunate conditions in all the 



Storms of the Soul 45 

world is a state of aimlessness. It saps the springs of 
power and dulls the finest soul. It drags down and de- 
stroys. I was only fifteen. What was my future to be? 
Never to go to the Academy again? Never to attend 
a Northern college? Never to cross the sea? What 
was there for me to do ? How could the days be filled so 
as to keep down the heart-break ? Those were the ques- 
tions that were never stilled. If my life had to be spent 
on the plantation, and if living meant no more for me 
than it meant for the women about me, what was the 
use of reading, of trying to cultivate my mind when it 
would have the effect of making me more miserable and 
of widening the intellectual gulf that already stretched 
between most of the neighbors and myself? What a 
terrible thing life seemed ! And how every impulse of 
my being hated it with an immeasurable hatred! In 
those days I died ten thousand deaths. I died to God 
and to humanity. 

From the hour of leaving school in Canton a deadness 
settled upon my soul. " The door was shut." The 
night closed in. That was the beginning of an unbelief 
that haunted me for ten dreary agonizing years. My 
natural tendency to questioning had been intensified by 
the environments of my childhood ; but the spirit of in- 
quiry had not led me further than the human side. The 
orthodox version of Creator and creation was accepted 
as credulously as the air that was breathed or the per- 
fume of flowers. It was only the grindings of poverty, 
the raspings of the jagged edges of every-day exist- 
ence and the perpetual witnessing of misery in the 
world about me that caused me first to ask: What is 



46 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

life? Up to the age of fifteen my soul had hoped and 
prayed and listened for the voice of God. I believed in 
Him, and waited — not patiently but imperatively, — but 
— I believed and zvaited. In the great storm that en- 
gulfed me at that time my faith let go its moorings, and 
I found myself drifting, without a gleam of light, out 
upon the waste of midnight waters known as skepti- 
cism. As the darkness deepened and tlioughts heavy 
with increasing doubts surged through my brain like a 
lava-tide, my soul demanded verification for my convic- 
tions. 

There was no one in the home with whom conversa- 
tion on such a subject w^ould have been particularly 
satisfying, so, in desperation a search was made through 
the library for some book that would answer my 
queries ; but nothing was found touching infidelity ex- 
cept the materialism of certain philosophers. These 
works were devoured until my mind became saturated 
with their ideas. I grew to despise Christianity and 
sneered at every profession of trust in a Supreme Being. 
Church members were observed critically and every sin 
and inconsistency which was discovered in them 
brought out that degree of derision and contempt to 
which only youth, ignorance and prejudice are equal. 
Mother had a habit of devoting several hours each 
morning to study of the Bible. On seeing her sur- 
rounded by rov/s of commentaries and bending over the 
Scriptures, comparing passages or memorizing texts, 
I felt my heart hardening, and was conscious of an in- 
creased aversion to religion. Our home was headquar- 
ters for all Methodist ministers who passed that way, 



Storms of the Soul 



47 



to mother's intense delight and my intense disgust. It 
was a rule of mine to avoid them whenever possible. 
My voluntary entrance into the church dated from my 
twelfth year, during a great revival. Now, when the 
scene occurred to me I laughed at myself for having 
yielded to so much emotion, and requested that my name 
be removed from the church books. 

Our home was headquarters not only for Methodist 
preachers but as well for Democratic politicians. Every 
candidate for office in the county found his way there, 
to mother's infinite chagrin and the unbounded delight 
of father and me. Mother often declined to appear at 
the table, so I would preside and afterward go into the 
parlor and talk with the visitors for hours on the situa- 
tion of public afifairs. The aspirants were of all descrip- 
tions — from the sleek, town-bred lawyer, " out " for the 
Senate, to the thin, country granger, who yearned to be 
a constable. They afforded me ample opportunity to 
learn the methods of political campaigns and to study 
the motives and natures of men. Often requests were 
made by the different candidates for my support in a 
canvass; but there were others who had little regard 
for a woman's assistance. 

One summer when the roads were kept dusty by the 
continuous goings to and fro of the anxious office-seek- 
ers, one of these interesting subjects dined at our house. 
He was a most forlorn specimen, with heavy, drooping 
eyes, straggling moustache and languid movements. 
His clothes, from the disconsolate set of his collar down 
to his edge-frayed trousers, draggling over his well- 
worn boots, gave evidence of a long, hard race on the 



48 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

war path. My sympathies were so aroused that as soon 
as dinner was over I followed him to the front gallery 
and, in a burst of condolence, said impulsively : " Mr. 
F., it is my intention to throw the whole weight of my 
influence to have you elected ! " Looking at me in a 
sleepily — quizzical fashion, he replied in a droning tone : 
" It had never occurred to me to ask the assistance of 
ladies in a political campaign. I supposed they were too 
busy in other matters to be interested in anything so 
weighty." 

Then he proceeded to tell this joke: There was a 
great convention of women held somewhere, and a cer- 
tain local society sent its delegate. When the repre- 
sentative returned a meeting was called that the ladies 
might hear her report. When this was finished she re- 
marked that questions were " in order." A slim little 
woman, with a weazen face peering out from a flaring 
poke-bonnet, arose in the rear of the room, and in a 
thin, high key called out : " Sister, what sort of hats did 
the women wear ? " Then my hopeful candidate, turn- 
ing towards me more fully, with a glimmer of some- 
thing in his eyes which he would have called humor, 
said : " It was my impression that all ladies thought 
more about hats and such things than politics." 

It is needless to say the facetious gentleman, with 
the well-worn apparel and Don Quixote air, lost my 
support suddenly and completely. 

As the days went by they found me more and more 
deeply immersed in reading. Father bought me trans- 
lations of the Greek, Latin and Italian poets. An old 
physician, quite a literateur, who had recently come into 



Storms of the Soul 49 

the neighborhood, loaned me valuable books that we' 
did not own. He put me under special obligations by 
sending Allison's '' Essays " and Montesquieu's '' Spirit 
of Laws." From other sources some of the works of 
Ruskin, Carlyle and Herbert Spencer came to me and 
found an honored place among my treasures. Although 
applying myself sedulously to books, I was being con- 
sumed with a feverish restlessness. My wretchedness 
went beyond the power of words to express. A deep- 
rooted desire to do something definite was always pres- 
ent ; but every undertaking that suggested itself seemed 
walled off by insurmountable barriers. 

Finally I concluded to study law under father, but 
when my intention was announced to him he discour- 
aged it utterly, arguing that if there were in my pos- 
session the legal lore of Blackstone and the ability of 
a Portia it would not guarantee me the opportunity 
of practising in the South. No woman had ever at- 
tempted such an absurdity, and any effort on my part, 
in that line, would subject me to ridicule and ostracism. 
After this fatal ending to my aspirations, I again sought 
refuge in books. With no definite object ahead and 
with not the faintest rim of a crescent of hope above my 
dull horizon. 

***** 
It was the summer of 1878. That terrible scourge, 
known as yellow-fever, crept relentlessly over the 
South. For the period of time that it lasted its deadly 
ravages exceeded the destruction of the civil war. 
Thousands stood shuddering in "The Valley of the 
Shadow." Death, grim and awful, stalked through the 



50 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

land knowing no surfeit. It was the blackness of de- 
spair. The acme of desolation. Pitiless quarantines 
were instituted; families were separated by a short 
dividing line never to be reunited. Others fled in ter- 
ror from their homes in towns, seeking refuge in tents 
and cabins; while those who could, went to distant 
states. Food supplies failed. Hunger, gaunt and hol- 
low-eyed, stole in at the open doors. Men, women and 
little children moved about listlessly, abandoning all 
work, looking hopelessly into each other's eyes, wonder- 
ing, with a speechless fear, who would go out first from 
among them to return no more. Friends did not visit 
nor church bells ring. All was silent as the tomb — wait- 
ing, waiting, waiting. In the cities, the roll of the 
death-cart broke the stillness of the streets as it passed 
swiftly from house to house, collecting the bodies and 
carrying them to the cemeteries. There was the thud 
of spades in the earth, driven by men digging graye 
after grave, but all else was silent — waiting, waiting, 
waiting. A white woman and her two little children 
died near us and were buried by a negro man. He dug 
the graves and, unaided, lowered the bodies into the 
earth. The husband dared not leave the bedside of the 
other sufferers in the afflicted family. A physician 
stopped one morning at the gate to give father a list of 
fresh victims. In four days the young doctor was dead. 
A family of ten persons, friends of ours, living near 
Vicksburg, were all stricken at one time. Nobody dared 
go near the house but the Italian nurses who had been 
sent out from the city. As death followed death the 
plantation bell would be tolled to notify those who acted 



Storms of the Soul 5 1 

as undertakers that another grave must be dug. For 
the sake of those still living the dead were lowered in 
sheets from the windows, to avoid the slow, ominous 
tramp of feet through the hall. All were gone but two 
— the father and a young widowed daughter. A 
swarthy Dago sat watching the latter, whiie the blood 
settled in her hands and neck. The bell began to toll. 
" What is that for? " she asked. '' To have your grave 
made ready, lady," was the answer. 

Late in the autumn the pall lifted. The quarantines 
were raised. The refugees returned to their deserted 
homes. The voice of traffic was heard. Life waked up 
with startled, saddened eyes from her long, deep sleep. 
It was the middle of November. Some said that Mrs. 
Woodman, our Northern friend, was very ill. Mother 
and I walked over the fields to see her. The dying sun 
streamed across the faded grass and lay in long, glint- 
ing lines upon the distant woods that had many days 
since laid aside their summer vesture. The tall rows 
of golden-rod and yellow coreopsis that fringed the 
winding path swayed noiselessly in the passing breeze. 
The houses of the little village, scattered here and there 
in a lonely way, had a pathetic mournf ulness. Away to 
the east a glimpse could be caught of the headstones 
that marked the quiet resting place of our dead. The 
surrounding country, with its gentle undulations, was 
wrapped in unbroken solitude. A peculiar sadness 
brooded over all. There is an inexplicable heart-break 
in those early days of a Southern winter; — changing 
sunshine, shifting shadows and still air full of a mystic 
haze. 



52 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

" A Spirit broods amid the grass : 
Vague outlines of the Everlasting Thought 
Lie in the melting shadows as they pass ; 
The touch of an Eternal Presence thrills 
The fringes of the sunsets and the hills." 

I was peculiarly susceptible to it all at that time, for 
my soul was full of its vague unrest, its ever present 
inquiry into life's meaning to me, overshadowed by a 
grieving unbelief of a Divine Providence. 

Soon we were standing in Mrs. Woodman's sick 
room. As I bent over the bed to greet her, she threw 
her arms about my neck and, drawing my face close 
down to her lips, she whispered, '' Dear child, I have 
been so lonely. When I get well you will come to stay 
a whole week with me, won't you ? Ah ! if I ever get 
well ! " She sighed and closed her eyes. In an hour 
she was unconscious. About sunset a happy smile 
broke over her face and sitting up suddenly she clasped 
her hands over her heart and cried out joyously, " Here 
are letters from home! letters from home! Oh! I am 
so glad, so glad ! " I did not know then the meaning of 
that cry ; but now that it is given me to see clearly and 
not ** through a glass, darkly," a realization comes that 
the " letters from home " brought the blessed call from 
her Lord, *' Arise, let us go hence " where " there shall 
be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, " — neither 
suffering nor loneliness, — where the ** many mansions " 
are — in the " city which hath foundations whose maker 
and builder is God." The next day the tender, beautiful 
friend of my childhood was dead, — from yellozv fever. 



CHAPTER VI 

A NEGRO SERMON 

Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute; 
What you can do, or dream you can, begin it! 

— Goethe. 

The following January, I went to Canton to visit 
my uncle's family. While there an unusually cheap ex- 
cursion to New Orleans was offered by the railway. I 
had never been to a city and had all of a girl's eagerness 
to see one ; especially our flowery, fascinating, dear, 
dreamy Crescent City. In a letter to mother the fact 
was mentioned that a number of my friends were going 
to take advantage of the low-rate trip, and expressed 
the wish that such a joy were possible for me. In a few 
days father came to Canton, and handed me a package 
and a crumpled note. On opening the latter I read: 

" Dear Sister : Mamma tells me that you want to 
go to New Orleans. I send you $15.00 — part of the 
money that came from the bale of cotton I raised last 
year. 

" Your Affectionate Brother." 

My loyal sympathizer in house-keeping sorrows thus 
opened the way for me to go. So, unexpectedly and 
gratefully, I made one of a party consisting of a gentle- 

53 



54 A. Slaveholder's Daughter 

man and his wife and two young ladies besides myself. 
After being comfortably located at a hotel we entered 
upon the usual sight-seeing. As we went from point 
to point, to the amazement of my chaperones nothing 
astonished me. All things were surveyed without a 
ripple of excitement or surprise. I had read of or heard 
" the sights " of New Orleans discussed until my imag- 
ination was familiar with them. The French market 
with its delicious coffee and chocolate ; the picturesque 
bend of the great river bearing upon its breast the huge 
ships from foreign waters; Canal street with its won- 
derful breadth, Clay's statue and everyv/here beautiful 
women ; Jackson Park, and its equestrian bronze of the 
old general who " fout the Britishers ; " the street-cars, 
the opera-houses, the handsome residences were as 
thrice-told-tales to me. 

My love of adventure and spirit of enterprise led me 
to separate myself from my party, while visiting the 
mint, and to go in search of some relatives in a distant 
part of the city. The most explicit directions were 
given, the right car was boarded and the desired 
street reached, but at a point far beyond the number 
wanted. While nervously going backward and forward 
scanning doors, footsteps behind were heard com- 
ing with a persistence that made me know I was fol- 
lowed. In a flash the remembrance came into my mind 
of all that had been told me of country girls being 
gagged, chloroformed and murdered on their first visits 
to cities. A scream was in my throat when the man 
reached my side. Instead of a ruffian, a courteous voice 
said : " May I take the liberty of helping you find the 



A Negro Sermon 55 

number you are evidently in search of? I too am a 
stranger in the city and am experiencing some of its 
difficulties." It is said that dogs and children are fine 
judges of character. Many women also do not outgrow 
this elemental power. Without an instant's hesitation 
his aid was accepted. In a few moments the right house 
was reached and the gentleman had presented his card, 

bowed and walked rapidly away. I read '' J W 

B , Attorney-at-law, Philadelphia, Pa." This inci- 
dent set two thoughts germinating in my brain: The 
interdependence of human beings, and, That humanity 
will bear trusting; it responds according to the faith 
put in it. Wider experience has convinced me of this 
more and more largely. 



Since gaining their freedom, the negro women's nat- 
ural love of dress has developed inordinately. It is one 
of their strongest predispositions — rivaled only by their 
religious emotions. Those about us bought brilliant- 
hued stuffs and had them made with most bizarre ef- 
fects, — a favorite being bright yellow calico trimmed 
with blue. Red was at a discount as it made them 
think of " hell-fire," they said. They were ignorant 
of sewing except of the plainest, coarsest order, so they 
paid to have their " Sunday-go-to-meetin' " dresses 
made. My desire for employment was so great, and 
there being no other opening, though it nearly crushed 
me, I swallowed my pride and asked the negroes to 
bring their sewing to me. They did it cheerfully. Day 
after day they came bearing their precious bundles, and. 



56 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

finding their way into mother's room, which was the 
scene of all our labors, would drop them on the floor 
and stand until negotiations were concluded. None sat 
in our presence. There has always been a very nice 
adjustment of this point between the families of ex- 
slave-holders and negroes ; the latter have a fine sense 
of when to accept or refuse an offered chair. It would 
be useless to explain it. " Oue must be born to it " to 
understand, as is said in South Carolina about cooking 
rice properly. 

The old servants usually began with " Mistis, how 
old I is ? " When told they would invariably give vent 
to their surprise by an ejaculation beginning in a long, 
high-keyed crescendo and ending in a diminuendo as 
abrupt as it was full of softest musical rhythm. " Lor', 
mistis, yo' say I is ! Marster, he done put it down in de 
book fo' de surrender, but I sho fergits it." 

The age of the negro always seems a puzzle to him, 
and judging by his face alone, is a problem impossible of 
solution, for he may be sixty-five or eighty-five, twenty 
or thirty. In old slave days the master kept an accurate 
record of their ages. How many generations of care- 
taking for themselves will be needed to register the true 
flight of time on their cheerful, unreflecting faces as it 
is recorded in white features, not by years but by the 
thought and responsibility and the spiritual force of the 
Hfe? 

The younger women introduced their business with, 
" Miss Belle, I done brung yo' a dress fer to make fer 
me. I has all de needfuls excusin' uv de fread. Ef yo' 



A Negro Sermon 57 

will gin me dat, I'll bring yo' some aigs nex' time I 
come." In sewing for the negroes mother did the cut- 
ting and fitting and all of the hand work; I did the 
stitching, bending over the machine week after week, 
until my back ached and my eyes grew dim from the 
awful strain. These dresses were often ruffled to the 
waist and otherwise elaborately trimmed, for which we 
charged only fifty or seventy-five cents. By this means 
we helped to *' make both ends meet." 

One of the most popular places for the exhibition of 
all this gaudy apparel was the church, especially during 
protracted meetings. These are still the chief diversion, 
beginning as soon as crops are " laid by," in July, and 
continuing until the cotton picking season opens in Sep- 
tember. The services, always at night, are indefinitely 
extended until near daybreak. In dimly lighted, mea- 
grely furnished frame buildings vast crowds gather. In 
the pulpit with the preacher is the precentor — not 
known by that name — some brother of noted devotional 
gift who begins the service by " lining out " a hymn, 
his voice intoning and dimly suggesting the tune with 
which the congregation follows, — one of those wild, 
weird negro airs, half chant and dirge, so full of demi- 
semi-quavers that only the improvisator-soul can divine 
it, yet, so full of strange, sweet melody and pathos, ren- 
dered in their marvelously tuneful voices, it is no 
wonder a suppresssed emotion begins to communicate 
itself through the audience. Fiery prayers increase the 
spiritual temperature. These are full of pathos and 
frequently close with :" Please, Sir, Lord Jesus, do dis 



58 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

here thing what yo' pore ole sarvant ax yo' fer." Ejac- 
ulations, groans and a measured tapping of heels on 
the bare floor becomes general. 

Snatches of song and more prayers prepare the way 
for the sermon. Words cannot picture the fervor of it, 
the facial expression, the wild, funereal cadences of 
voice. 

One that I heard during March, 1899, ^^ one of the 
earliest settled and most cultured parts of Mississippi, 
was preached by a typical African, very black, much 
white in his prominent eye, long under jaw and the in- 
side of his hands a light cream color. A favorite ges- 
ture was to hold the palms out, towards the audience. 
He wore a clerical black suit, but around his neck, just 
under the coat collar, a flaming red scarf appeared, the 
ends hanging over his waistcoat. The occasion was the 
funeral of a respectable colored man, Felix Jackson, 
who had died on the plantation which I was then visit- 
ing, and whose body was in front of the pulpit. 

The preacher began by saying, " I doan' fool my time 
'way much er preachin' funeral sermons. Tse got sum- 
phin' better to do in dis here worl'. I'se in er sing'ler 
persishun here ter day. Yo' all is Baptis' an' I is Meth- 
odis' ; but I think I can prove dat my doctrin' is de 
correc' one. I done studied all de ologies wid dat eend 
in view. I been studied geology, an' zoology, an' soci- 
ology, an' ethnyology, an' Christianology. I'se read 
Demosthenes, an' Cicero, an' Plato, an' Moses, an' 
Josephus an' Jehosaphat an' all de udder translaters er 
de Bible. But ail dat ain' here ner dar ; it doan' 'mount 
ter nothin' in dcr presence er yer daid an' when yer 



A Negro Sermon 59 

think er de jedg'men' day, (whining) Brer Felix Jack- 
son doan' cyar no more 'bout it. He done gone whar 
yer cyan't go wid 'im; er — er — (groans). Yer'U neber 
see 'im no more er follerin' behine he mule in der fiel' ; 
yer'll neber see 'im agin er comin' 'long der road ter dis 
here church ; yer'll neber see 'im gwine inter his house 
ter his wife an' little chilluns when de day's wuk's done 
(moans, screams). 

" Brer Felix Jackson's body's in dat coffin 'fore yer. 
But he ain' dar ! O — oh ! No! — L-o-rd ! He done rise! 
He done rise wid taller (pallor) on his face (shrieks), 
to meet de 'possle Matthew, an' de 'possle Mark, an' de 
'possle Luke, an' de 'possle John. An' ebry one on 'em 
say, Telix Jackson, what yer been doin' in de life yer 
jes' lef?' Oh! Lo-r-d! brudderin' dat's er solem' mo- 
men' ! (groans). Got ter face de 'possles an' 'count fer 
yer deeds done yere on de yearth! Ebry one on 'em 
knowed 'im, dough he ain' take his body wid 'im. De 
Word say what some folks kin go to glory widout dyin' 
— translated dey calls it. But brudderin, / say whedder 
yo' dies er yer doan' die, somewhar betwix dis worl' an' 
de nex' yer got ter lose de body. Our daid brudder 
done got ter de presence er der angel Gabrell, an' Ga- 
brell he say, * Brer Felix Jackson, ivhat yer been doin' 
in de udder worl' ? ' But de angel know, an' Brer Jack- 
son know, he kin gib er good 'count er hissdf. Brer 
Jackson ain' got no taller (pallor) on his face den. De 
angel done tech it wid glory, an' glory ter God ! he go 
right in! (shouts). 

" But what yer niggers gwine ter do when yer stan's 
whar Brer Jackson done stan' ? V/hat yer gwine ter 



6o A Slaveholder's Daughter 

do when yer's on yer coolin' boa'd lak he done bin? 
What yer gwine ter answer when yer call on fer yer 
sins what yer done while yer's awalkin' aroun' ? Some 
er yer say dar's white sins an' dars black sins ; but doan' 
fool yerselves ! Dar ain' no meaner sinner ner a nigger 
when he gits ter sinnin' ; an' sin is sin whedder it's 
white folks' sin, or black folks' sin ; an' yer got ter quit 
yer meanness if yer eber means ter git ter glory. (Yes, 
Lord!) ; fer de trumpet'll be er soundin' an' de jedg- 
men' day'U be on yer lak' er thief in de night. Whar'll 
yer be, sinners, when de graves is er openin' an' de daid 
is er risin? (Eyes rolling, palms out.) O — Oh! L-o-r-d! 
whar'll yer be when Brer Jackson'U be er risin wid er 
boa'd (board — his coffin lid) ober his face! Whar'll yer 
be den! er-er-er!" (Wild excitement.) 

Women sprang to their feet with unearthly screams 
and began to rend their clothes, upon which other sis- 
ters, whom " the Sperit had not got " yet, held the fren- 
zied hands. Some went into trances and fell on the 
floor ; others grappled with the shouters, trying to '* hold 
them down." Failing in this they laid them on their 
backs and sat upon them. 

During all this violent demonstration the preacher 
continued his sermon, gradually cooling down his hear- 
ers. The men did not shout, but sat with the " holy 
laugh " on their faces, ejaculating fervently, tapping 
their feet in metre, and under as intense, if less noisy, 
excitement as the women. The trancers stayed where 
they fell until they regained consciousness; then they 
related with wild inflection and gesticulation what the 
angel Gabriel had " done tole 'em " while their spirits 



A Negro Sermon 6i 

sojourned between heaven and earth. My friend and 
I sat surrounded by the distracted multitude trembHng 
with fear, not knowing what moment we would be 
stunned by a blow or crushed by a falling body. When 
the climax of wildness was reached, a family servant 
of my hostess pushed her way to us through the strug- 
gling throng and touching my companion on the shoul- 
der said : " Miss Hattie, yo' an' Miss Belle had better 
leave. It's er gittin' dangerous here." We beat a 
hasty retreat and did not feel secure until we were once 
again under the sheltering roof of the old plantation 
home. 

At the close of the protracted meetings the baptizings 
begin. Multitudes assemble on the banks of a pond, or 
creek, or river, and the candidates are led out into the 
depths by the pastor and the deacons. It requires a 
heavy squad for the shouters are more unmanageable 
in the water than in the church. Some of the members 
are baptized twice in successive years as their conver- 
sion is found not to be genuine the first time. 

It is customary among the colored people to preach 
the funeral sermon of a deceased church member or 
relative several weeks, or even months, after the death, 
— just as is convenient. These are particularly prom- 
inent occasions, calling for extra " finery " and parade. 
Everybody who can afford it is newly gowned, and the 
" siety " to which the departed friend belongs is con- 
spicuous. The society in the church represents the 
club-spirit of the negro. The wife of the deceased is 
permitted to sit as chief mourner at the funeral sermon, 
provided she- has not married again before" that cere- 



62 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

mony. In the event, however, that another spouse has 
been taken, and she had yet had the effrontery to occupy 
the chief seat, the deacons lead her in shamefacedness 
and deep disgrace to the rear of the church. The same 
rule applies to the husband of '' de ceasted." 

Some of the widows are gay indeed. One of uncle 
Kinch's ex-slaves, a few years ago, went to Canton on 
business and called to pay her respects to my aunt. In 
course of conversation the latter asked : " What is the 
news down at Vernon, Hester ? " Stuffing her hand- 
kerchief into her mouth to prevent an explosion of 
laughter, she giggled out hysterically, *' Nuthin' 
strange, Miss Henretter! Jes* my husban' die las' 
week ! " 

One day I asked an old colored woman who was 
doing house work for us, " aunt Burley, how many 
children have you had ? " *' Nineteen," she answered 
laconically. "How many have died?" was my next 
question. " All but two," she replied. " You have been 
unfortunate, aunt Burley," was my sympathetic re- 
joinder. " Ugh ! chile ! I think I'se been pow'ful 
lucky ! she exclaimed with a triumphant shrug of her 
shoulders and a satisfied twist of the ends of the ban- 
danna handkerchief that adorned her woolly head. 

In negro life, as among all lower races, the woman is 
the slavish subject of the man. It used to be declared 
on a plantation, after the war, that the only man who 
did not whip his wife was the man whose wife whipped 
him. It was said to be pitiable to see these wives come 
to the old master for protection. " I want yo' to make 
Zeke stop beatin' me, marster! I can't stan' it no 



A Negro Sermon 63 

longer ! " one would complain. " I don't see what I 
can do," would be the answer. " I have no authority ; 
he is as free as I am. You will have to go to the Freed- 
man's Bureau about it." " What I got ter do wid de 
Bureau ! Yo' allers did 'low dat he shouldn't whip me 
when he b'longed ter yo' ! " All that a planter could 
do under the circumstances was to threaten to put the 
man off his place ; but this did not remedy the evil, for, 
if he left, he took his family with him. 

The tyranny of the husband over the wife largely 
destroys the sacredness of the unity of the two lives, 
and brings marriage into disrepute. A negro woman, 
who is the mother of several children although unmar- 
ried, upon hearing of the wedding of a colored girl 
living on the plantation of a friend of mine in Louisiana, 
exclaimed scornfully : '* Dat nigger sho was er fool ter 
git married ! she doan' know what trubble she is er git- 
tin' inter. I allers sade I was er gwine ter be er ole maid 
an' I is ! " A most appalling looseness of morals exists 
among the negroes. 

Recently an investigation was made into the causes 
of the excessive death-rate of the colored people. This 
inquiry was conducted under the supervision of Atlanta 
University, assisted by graduates from other colleges 
and universities for the higher education of the negro, 
such as Fisk, Berea, Lincoln, Spilman, Howard and 
Meharry. Conferences were subsequently held to as- 
certain the social and physical condition of the race. 
After a close study of the question, involving accurate 
comparisons of statistics gleaned from different cities, 
and a personal visitation to the homes of numerous 



64 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

negroes, it was declared that this mortality is not the 
result of diseases produced by unsanitary surroundings, 
but is due to the colored people's '' disregard of the 
laws of health and morality." Valuable papers were 
read, entirely void of race prejudices, making a frank 
acknowledgment of the degradation of the blacks, and 
expressing an earnest desire for remedy. Eugene Har- 
ris, of Fisk University, one of the most broad-minded 
negroes attending the conference, stated : " The consti- 
tutional diseases which are responsible for our unusual 
motality are often traceable to enfeebled constitutions 
broken down by sexual immoralities. This is fre- 
quently the source of even pulmonary consumption, 
which disease is to-day the black man's scourge. 

** According to Hoffman, over 25 per cent of the 
negro children born in Washington City are admittedly 
illegitimate. According to a writer quoted in Black 
America, ' in one county of Mississippi there were dur- 
ing twelve months 300 marriage licenses taken out in 
the county clerk's office for white people. According 
to the proportion of population there should have been 
in the same time 1,200 or more for negroes. There 
were actually taken out by colored people just three.' 
James Anthony Froude asserts that 70 per cent of the 
negroes in the West Indies are born in illegitimacy. Mr. 
Smeeton claims that ' in spite of the increase of educa- 
tion there has been no decrease of this social cancer.' " 

It should be remembered that a race, like an individ- 
ual, has its period of youth. The African m America 
has not yet advanced beyond that age. We must not ex- 
pect too much of him at once. It has taken many cen- 



A Negro Sermon 65 

turies to bring the Anglo-Saxon to his present imperfect 
ethical development. It will not take less time to perfect 
the negro, — and whoever reckons for him without con- 
sidering the thickness of his skull and the length of his 
under jaw, the relative smoothness of his brain and the 
amount of gray matter at his nerve centres will be dis- 
appointed. 

It is higher ethical training from the pulpit and in 
the schools that the negro needs. He likes a preacher 
and. a teacher of his own color. While this is well in 
that it gives him a leader near enough to his own level 
to be in sympathy with him, it has the disadvantage 
of depriving him of close and constant contact with the 
standards to which an African must come, if he sur- 
vives in an Anglo-Saxon civilization. 

This is the " negro problem " — part of it. What shall 
be done with it ? " The slow process of the ages " is 
the message that comes to our reflection. Meanwhile 
those who care, — and there are many in the South who 
do, — vote more money for the public schools, and help 
the negro to build his churches, and wait — because they 
do not see what else to do. The end of another century 
will be time enough at which to take the next reckoning 
of what American civilization has done for " Our 
Brother In Black.'^ 



CHAPTER VII 

A HIGHER LIFE 

Rather the ground that's deep enough for graves. 
Rather the stream that's strong enough for waves, 

Than the loose sandy drift 
Whose shifting surface cherishes no seed 
Either of any flower or any weed, 

Whichever way it shift. — Anon. 

When I was sixteen years old an invitation was re- 
ceived from some relatives in Oxford, Mississippi, to 
attend the Commencement exercises at the State Uni- 
versity. This was my first entrance into society as a 
young lady. My wardrobe consisted of inexpensive 
Swiss and organdie dresses trimmed with some old laces 
that mother had rescued from the wreck of time. My 
appearance was that of a woman and long since the 
decision had been made, to " put away childish things." 
My girlhood griefs were buried out of sight. 

The desire of my heart had been to lead the life of a 
thoroughly independent creature; but I soon found 
that it seemed absurd to differ from other persons. 
Now there was nothing to do but drift with the tide. 
I laughed and talked and acted like the women about 
me ; but there was a sting in it all to which the world 
>vas not blind. My society chat had a current of sar- 

66 



A Higher Life 67 

casm, my merriment a tinge of bitterness. A knowl- 
edge of card-playing had been gained while attending 
school in Canton, and my first lesson in dancing was 
taken in such extreme youth that it is impossible to re- 
call it. During Christmas holidays there were always 
several parties given in the neighborhood of Vernon, 
and in summer there were numerous out-of-door festiv- 
ities. I attended them all and often danced through a 
winter night and a long, hot summer day when not over 
ten years old. Dancing was a part of a Southern girl's 
education. It was as natural as eating or laughing. 
After a young lady had made her debut, she would soon 
become " a wall-flower " in society if she did not dance. 
On going to Oxford it was an easy thing for me to fall 
in with the trend of custom. The days were divided 
between playing croquet with the University students 
and returning fashionable calls ; the nights were given 
to games of euchre and attending entertainments. 

The last and greatest social function of the season 
was the Comm.encement ball. Mother had unearthed 
an old ante-bellum blue silk and put it in my trunk for 
an emergency. This was now brought forth and labori- 
ously transformed into an evening costume. The stains 
of years were covered up with the inevitable lace or hid- 
den by sprays of flowers. My escort called at ten 
o'clock in a carriage with another youthful couple and 
we went to the ballroom. The dignified custom of 
chaperonage was then nearly obsolete. My program 
was filled out and I danced straight through it until 
the last strain of music ended with the advent of the 
sun next morning. With me nothing has ever been 



68 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

done by halves. Whatever has been undertaken at all 
has been undertaken with intensity. 

The summer at Oxford was the beginning of gaieties 
tliat continued, almost witliout interruption, for three 
years. The winters were spent at my uncle's home in 
Canton and in Jackson with very dear cousins. Another 
visit was made to New Orleans under happier circum- 
stances. In summer my friends visited me at the plan- 
tation. While in the country we rode on horse-back, 
had buggy drives and out-door games ; went on fishing 
and camping excursions; attended picnics and barbe- 
cues ; gave dinners and teas, and exchanged visits with 
two delightful families who had guests with them 
throughout the warm months. These families and ours 
had only recently become acquainted as they lived miles 
away from us ; but distances are small considerations 
v/hen " life is new " and pleasure the one pursuit in 
existence. 

My stays at home were comparatively brief during 
these three years ; but while there my reading was con- 
tinued and mother and I managed to do a great deal 
of sewing for the negroes. My oldest brother had one 
year at the University and immediately after secured a 
position in a mercantile establishment in the northern 
part of the state. During my visits to the towns there 
was a ceaseless round of balls, theatres, receptions and 
card parties, nearly every one of which I attended ; from 
the Governor's inaugural entertainment at the Mansion 
to an impromptu dance in a private, home. 

Those were fateful months. The foundations of ill- 
health vt^ere laid which haunted me for fifteen years. 



A Higher Life 69 

Often in freezing weather my thick shoes and heavy 
clothing were put aside for thin shppers and gauze 
dresses and bare neck and arms. After dancing till heat 
or fatigue became unbearable a rush would be made 
into the deadly night air, with only a filmy lace shawl 
thrown over my shoulders for protection. 

There were few days in those three years in which 
I did not have a desperate fight with my soul. Con- 
scious of not living up to my high conceptions of life, 
I hated myself and abhorred the way my time was 
spent. The truth forced itself upon me that theatres 
were rarely elevating, that the trail of the serpent was 
over every card, that round-dancing was demoralizing 
and that many of the young men who danced with me 
were not worthy of my friendship. Night after night 
on returning from an entertainment, I have sat before 
the fire pouring out my contempt for myself and all my 
world in scathing denunciation, always ending with the 
moan that had been in my heart since childhood, " What 
is there for me to do? Life is so empty, so unsatisfy- 
ing ! I wish I had never been born ! " The girls who 
kept the vigils with me would greet my torrent of grief 
and rebellion with peals of laughter. Bessie Fearn, my 
cousin and constant companion, a most brilliant and fas- 
cinating young woman, would say, " It is impossible 
for me to understand you. How can you see any harm 
in cards or dancing or theatres ? I am as untouched in 
spirit to-night as a child could be ! " In later years, 
when a personal knowledge of Christ came to her, these 
things in which she once saw no " harm " palled upon 
her and in renunciation of them her life became a glad 



7© A Slaveholder's Daughter 

song of consecration until the time came of '' entering 
into rest " where her eyes beheld " the King in his 
beauty " in " the land that is very far off." 

After the last fierce struggle with the finer elements 
of my being, a definite determination was made to aban- 
don the shallow, aimless life that had been entered 
upon; — and it was done, — suddenly and forever. It 
was concluded further that I must go to work, that an 
occupation uplifting and strengthenmg must be secured 
if every family tradition was shattered and if my life 
were forfeited in the attempt. 

Father and I had always been congenial except along 
certain lines. In the light of after experiences we both 
became wise enough to avoid all splitting issues. Up 
to this time, however, the depths of his convictions con- 
cerning work for women had never been sounded. 
Mother believed in me utterly. She was my devoted, 
changeless, unquestioning ally. Father, on the contrary, 
with all his gentleness and aft'abllity, was a severe critic 
and, at times, a most sarcastic opponent. Consequently, 
whenever an embryo scheme was on hand, he was in- 
variably sought in order to get an expression of opinion, 
regardless that his views might be totally different from 
mine. When a child rest never came to me until every 
important occurrence of my daily life had been related 
to him, heedless of the consequences of the confidence. 

He had been terribly grieved over my indulgence in 
round-dancing. At the country festivities, I had been 
allowed to attend in childhood, only the dignified quad- 
rilles of earlier times were in vogue. It had not oc- 
curred to him that my inclinations might reach out 



A Higher Life fi 

tendrils towards the customs of my own day. He had 
often tried to dissuade me from round-dancing, but 
was unable to extract a promise that it would be given 
up. However, when my decision was reached to dance 
no more I went at once to him and announced it. " Well, 
my daughter," he remarked, surveying me calmly, 
" you do not deserve a particle of credit, for you do not 
stop because it is right, but because you are disgusted." 
This diagnosis of the case was accepted, but with a 
tremendously offended ego. 

Soon after this encounter, father was again inter- 
viewed. Broaching the subject abruptly I said : *' Life 
has grown very tiresome to me and some change must 
be effected. It is my intention to work at some em- 
ployment that will make it possible for me to support 
myself." Father looked at me a little dazed, and an- 
swered : " Work ? " with a high-tide inflection on the 
word. '' Work?" with renewed emphasis — " and may 
I ask of what nature your work will be ? " 

" Certainly," was my quick reply, " I intend to teach 
school." '' /wdeed ! " said father, with a peculiar drawl 
of the prefix which would have sent terror to my soul 
when a child. 

" Yes, sir ! " came my answer with decision, " I am 
going to teach school." 

" But you forget," he exclaimed, making a desperate 
effort to control the quaver in his voice and to hide 
the tremor of his eyelids that revealed the storm in his 
heart, ** you forget that I am able to give you a support. 
You forget that you are my only daughter. Do you 
mean to tell me that you are going to teaching? I will 



72 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

never consent to it ! " — and he walked off with an air 
which told too plainly that the conference was ended. 

Without being in the least dismayed, and saying not 
a word to any one, I put on my sunbonnet and gloves 
and started forth determined to settle the school ques- 
tion. There were few children in the immediate neigh- 
borhood and the majority of these were very poor ; but 
wherever there was a shadow of a chance for success, 
their homes were visited and a request made for pupils. 
An upstairs bedroom in our dwelling was transformed 
into a schoolroom, and the following Monday morning 
I entered upon my career as teacher. Father did not 
say one word. His courtesy was never at fault ; besides, 
he had discovered in me a certain will-force, inherited 
from both ** sides of the house," and an indomitable 
energy which he began to respect. At the end of the term 
he said to me : " Allow me, daughter, to congratulate 
you upon your fine success." Mother was radiant with 
delight from the beginning, for she understood my long- 
ings. Everything was made to bend to my wishes. The 
children were permitted to eat their lunches on the long 
front gallery upstairs, and to romp in the yard under 
the closely matted branches of the great cedars and 
among the trailing periwinkle vines whose green leaves 
carpeted almost every foot of ground. There were only 
seven pupils in my school and their tuition fees amounted 
to but $12 a month; but those twelve dollars were as 
large as twelve full moons in my eyes and as precious 
as blood-drops. Among the seven children there was 
only one at all well advanced ; while teaching him I had 
a good chance to review text-books and to again get into 



A Higher Life 73 

the habit of study. While managing the others an ex- 
cellent opportunity was afforded for the cultivation of 
the grace of patience, which was sorely needed, and of 
gaining some practical knowledge of the methods of 
teaching. 

I was nineteen years old at the beginning of my little 
private school. 



CHAPTER Vni 

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL MA'aM. 

Nothing's small! 
No lily- muffled hum of a summer bee, 
But finds some coupling with the spinning stars; 
No pebble at your feet, but proves a sphere; 
No chaffinch, but implies the cherubim ; 

Earth's crammed with heaven, 

And every common bush afire with God. 

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 

At the close of my private school session a determina- 
tion was made to expend my energies no longer on so 
few children and with such small financial returns ; but 
that an application should be made for the public school 
where there would be more pupils and a larger salary. 
Once more my plans were revealed to father. His 
amazement and opposition were greater this time than 
before. *' Teach the public school ! " he echoed after 
me. " The public school ! " incredulously. " Why, I 
would not have you brought in contact with its rougher 
elements and subjected to dictates that would surely 
come, for all the world ! A little private school in the 
seclusion of our home was a different matter entirely. 
Nothing could induce me to consent to your going out 
as a public school teacher." 

74 



The Public School Ma'am 75 

The next day I called on the trustees of the public 
school at Vernon and asked to be their teacher for the 
autumn term. They were astonished, but readily con- 
sented. Keeping my own counsel, one of my brothers 
was induced, in the course of a week, to drive me to 
Canton where a call was made on the County Superin- 
tendent of Education. With straightforwardness I said, 
" Mr. S, it is my intention to support myself. You will 
oblige me forever by granting me a first-class certificate 
for a public school without requiring an examination. 
It has been over four years since my school days ended. 
It would be impossible for me to stand an examination ; 
but it is equally certain that I am competent to teach 
the Vernon school and make a success of it." The 
superintendent smiled indulgently, filled out a certificate 
and handed it to me. The law then. in reference to ex- 
aminations was not as rigid as now. 

With a joyous spirit my face was turned homeward 
and my official document was displayed with all the 
pride of a conqueror. At the opening of the fall term 
I was seated in my chair of state viewing with satisfac- 
tion the half hundred boys and girls who greeted me. 
They were of all shapes and sizes; from young men 
with beards on their faces to roly-poly urchins just out 
of bibs. Oh ! what a time we had ! The boys chewed 
tobacco during school and spat upon the floor. Every 
now and then an especially genteel fellow walked to the 
nearest window to expectorate. The girls were piously 
and prettily demure while they thought I was looking 
at them; but the instant my gaze was removed they 
threw spit-balls at the infant class and love notes to the 



76 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

giant rustics who were wrestling with their quids and 
slates. 

They were unclassified ; there were not ten books 
among them which were alike. The grading was found 
to be an unending task, for every week there was a new 
set of pupils. The children in the different families 
took turns in doing the work and resting from their 
mental labors. Before the close of the session, however, 
several solid classes had been formed and impressed 
with the importance of attending school regularly. 
These stood by me to the end and delighted my heart 
by making rapid progress. 

The struggle with the ''submerged tenth" continued. 
There were fights among them at recess and while go- 
ing home in the afternoon. Some of the girls swore 
like troopers and the boys struck them for it. Only 
my presence in the midst of the hordes prevented rough 
language and blows. Court was held as regularly as 
school and justice administered according to testimony. 

It was impossible to use my judgment in selecting 
studies for the pupils as their parents bought the books 
that suited them and refused to get others. One day a 
boy handed me a note from a patron which ran as fol- 
lows : ** Mis I doant warnt mi Sun ben To studdie 
Nuthin but reedin wrighten spelin and Figgers Re- 
specfuly Willium L ." 

A terrible strain on my patience was realized in 
teaching a fat, little, five-year-old boy his alphabet. It 
seemed impossible, after all the other letters were con- 
quered, for him to learn " u." Seizing his chubby hand 
in mine, the invincible character was v/ritten in his palm 



The Public School Ma'am "j^j 

with a piece of chalk. Then holding it before his eyes 
I said, " Now, John, this is u." Puckering up his face 
as if in mortal agony he gave a loud yell that ended in 
a heart-broken wail, and sobbed out, " No, Miss Belle, 
dat ain't me-e-e-ee ! " 

Some of the boys were manly, home-spun fellows 
with imagination. One of them, on a memorable morn- 
ing, was given the word squirrel to spell and define. 
Tom rattled the spelling off in grand style with startling 
vehemence. Then came a dead pause. Looking up I 
said : '' Well, now, the definition ? What is a squirrel ? " 
" A varmint." " Oh ! that won't do ! Try again. What 
is a squirrel ? " " Somethin' what runs up a tree." " No, 
sir ! that won't do. Try again. What is a squirrel ? " 
A long pull at his *' gallusses," a puzzled searching 
of the ceiling with a look that suddenly broke into light, 
then a glad shout : '' Oh ! I know ! A squirl's some- 
thin' what eats nuts with his tail standin' up ! " 

When the spring opened all the large boys had to stop 
school to work in the crop. My salary depended on the 
number of pupils in attendance, dropping some months 
as low as $18.00, and never going beyond $25.00 — the 
daily attendance ranging from five to fifty. Regular 
visits were made to all my patrons in the effort to in- 
spire them with the importance of educating their chil- 
dren. Poor little homes were entered and parents met 
who had lived within two miles of our plantation since 
my early childhood, but who were unknown to me. At 
first this was an ordeal, but by degrees my interest in 
the children deepened, and the poverty and ignorance 
of their home-protectors became a positive burden on 



78 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

my soul; profound pity began to push out less noble 
feelings. 

Those were days of quiet growth for me. In that 
little school-house, which was not more than a hut, 
among those rude girls and boys was learned my first 
real lesson in self-command. In the beginning there 
was a fire of insubordination smouldering in the hearts 
of even the meekest looking of my undisciplined rabble 
that only needed a spark to set it into a blaze. There 
was one particularly mild-mannered boy, with large, 
dreamy eyes and the languid air of a '' Vere de Vere." 
He never knew his lessons. Finally my patience 
reached its last gasp and I told him if he failed the next 
day he would have to suffer punishment. He was ut- 
terly deficient and was called forward. Thrusting his 
hand into his pocket and drawing out a large, open 
knife he struck at me. My movements were quick 
enough to seize his v/rist and divert the blow, and my 
hands were strong enough to wrest the knife from his 
grasp. He was dealt with, after the Scriptural sugges- 
tion, according to his sin. After that his scholarship 
was unexcelled and his conduct irreproachable. 

Another severe test soon came to me. There was a 
tall, muscular fellow, seventeen years old, who made a 
dismal failure on a certain day. He was commanded 
to stay in at recess and study. A heavy frown gathered 
but he said nothing. When the noon hour came he ate 
his lunch, picked up his books and started for the door. 
" Where are you going, Jim ? " I asked. " Home ! " he 
muttered. *' If you do go,'* was my reply, ** remember 



The Public School Ma'am 79 

that you cannot come to school to me again." He made 
no answer and went out. 

The next morning Jim was in his seat with head bent 
low over his books. After calling the school to order 
the incident of the previous day in connection with Jim 
was related and the case taken up. Turning to the of- 
fender I said sternly, " Take your books, sir, and go 
home ! " The boy's head sank lower and lower. There 
was a profound silence. Looking up finally in an abject, 
pleading fashion he said : " Miss Belle, please forgive 
me for acting so bad yesterday. I'm truly sorry. If 
you'll let me stay I promise never to disobey you again." 
The amende honorable was accepted, peace reigned and 
the spirit of insurrection was quelled forever. Jim was 
ever after my loyal vassal, helping me to dismount on 
rainy mornings and the first in the afternoons to bring 
my horse to the stump which was my stepping-block 
to reach the saddle, meekly handing my whip as the 
reins were gathered for the homeward gallop. 

I became Argus-eyed and learned to control my 
pupils by sheer will-power. A rebuke was seldom 
given, a scolding never. They were simply looked at. 
The highest class moved along steadily; when it was 
finally surrendered, at the close of my regime, it would 
have been entitled to enter the Sophomore class in a 
college. Coming in contact with such rough specimens 
of humanity and expending so much energy in the effort 
to control them, told heavily upon my nervous system. 
Every afternoon, on returning home, during my earlier 
experiences, my first thought was to seek the privacy 



8o A Slaveholder's Daughter 

of my room. Falling upon the bed in exhaustion my 
pent-up emotions found vent in a passion of tears. I 
had always regarded crying as an evidence of weakness 
and when quite a girl determined that no one should 
ever doubt my strong-mindedness ; so, on going to the 
supper-table, my appearance would be freshened up and 
my face wreathed with the blandest of smiles. I studied 
until midnight regularly to keep ahead of my pupils; 
mastering books taken up by them that had not been 
taught me in my school days, and applying myself 
closely to mathematics v/hich I had unwisely neglected 
while at the Academy, for history, rhetoric, philosophy, 
English literature and kindred branches. 

For four years in heat and dust, in rain and mud I 
trudged to that little school-house by the roadside. I 
drank from the neighboring creek when the cistern was 
dry or filled with debris, in either of which conditions 
it was usually found. On freezing days I crouched 
over a cracked stove that radiated little heat, with the 
snow drifting down upon my head through the defect- 
ive roof. In the winter season I went again and again 
to find the house empty, to come back home weary and 
disgusted, with my little brother trotting by my side 
sputtering indignantly because he had not been allowed 
to stay at home ** like other folkses childerns." 

Sometimes mid-summer sessions would be taught to 
accommodate the larger pupils who had to be in the 
field until the crop was " laid by." The heat was almost 
intolerable, the days seemed unending. The drowsy, 
germ-laden, suffocating hours would be lived through 
in dreariness and suffering : but, hard as it all was, noth- 



The Public School Ma'am 8i 

ing would be taken in exchange for the self-knowledge 
and self-power that I gained in this struggle. 

The money that was made during the first session 
was invested in a course of study in the Normal College, 
at luka, Mississippi. At the close of the term a visit 
was made to the Southern Chautauqua, at Monteagle, 
Tennessee. Portions of other vacations were spent in 
Canton taking private lessons in mathematics from my 
friend, Mrs. Amelia Drane, a teacher of wide experi- 
ence and unusual ability. She was the only woman, at 
that time, who had graduated at Soule's Commercial 
College, in New Orleans. 

In the afternoons, at the close of her school, she 
would stand with me at the blackboard or sit near me 
for hours giving the most patient instruction regardless 
of weariness or the hot, chalky atmosphere. When our 
engagement was ended and when, according to contract, 
the requisite amount of money was brought to remuner- 
ate her, the tears sprang to her eyes and laying her 
kindly, blessed hands in mine she cried : '' My dear child, 
do you suppose I would accept a dollar from yon? Some 
day, if it is ever needed, you may pay me, but not now." 
Only in eternity can this noble, unselfish friend realize 
what she did for me in helping to make smooth the 
paths which, at that time, stretched bare and stony 
through my struggling life. Such a deed as that is far 
above price ; it can find a recompense only " in kind." 

Some time after my experience in teaching was be- 
gun, a new railway brought into existence the little 
town of Flora, within four miles of father's plantation. 
I was invited to accept the position of assistant teacher 



82 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

in the public school there; a male principal having al- 
ready been installed. As the salaries were still depend- 
ent upon the number of pupils in attendance, my remu- 
neration would not have been an inducement had not 
a promise been made that it should be brought up to a 
certain monthly sum by the patrons. Board was offered 
in a pleasant family with the understanding that I 
should every night supervise the study hours of the little 
daughter. 

The offer was accepted and the term finished without 
a jar in the school-room. Going away from home to 
board and playing the governess, after nightfall, was 
a repugnant prospect; but my association with the 
happy household was so agreeable and my small pupil 
so gentle and studious that the dread faded away, and 
a friendship which has suffered no change in the pass- 
ing years was the fortunate result. 

The public school session closed in April — there were 
only five months allowed by the law. I opened an inde- 
pendent private school in the Methodist church build- 
ing. The principal of the public school occupied the 
school-house. Three months were passed pleasantly. 
The following fall another private school was taught 
in Flora, which was conducted as easily as the first. 
My only hardship was in having to buy all the wood that 
was used and in making the fires. Finally, I was re- 
lieved of the latter through the goodness of a kind- 
hearted patron. 

Father was elected to the lower house of the legis- 
lature again and served in the session of 1880. In 1891 
he was sent to the state senate. My oldest brother was 



The Public School Ma'am 83 

still in business in North Mississippi. My second 
brother had entered the Agricultural and Mechanical 
College, but, his health failing, in a few months he went 
to Texas for a dryer climate and sunnier fortunes. My 
third brother, after a course at a Business College, as- 
sumed complete management of the plantation, develop- 
ing a decided talent for '' turning a dollar." 

Our financial affairs were now on a firmer basis but 
none of us had thought of relieving mother. While in 
the school-room, at Flora, one day the conviction sud- 
denly seized me that she was ill. The impression grew 
with the hours. In the afternoon I mounted a horse 
and alone rode home to have my presentiment con- 
firmed. In an agony of remorse I threw myself by the 
sick-bed and cried : '* O, mother, please forgive me for 
all my thoughtlessness and selfishness ! In these years 
since the way was opened for me to make money my 
only purpose has been to cultivate my mind, and it was 
forgotten that you were growing old, and now you have 
failed through work and care ! " 

A cook was hired before sunset and never since that 
sad day has the home been without one, nor without 
a woman to do the housework as well as servants for 
harder forms of labor. 



CHAPTER IX 

EDUCATIONAL MATTERS 

If you would not cease to love mankind. 
You must not cease to do them good. 

— Marie Eschenbach. 

By degrees the public school won its way to favor in 
the South. It triumphed " over prejudice, over pov- 
erty, over opposition engendered by a large negro pop- 
ulation which pays little tax and whose schools are a 
heavy burden upon the property owners." In the years 
immediately following the re-establishment of the " free 
school," after the civil war, it was considered scarcely 
respectable to patronize it, and the person who under- 
took to teach one was brave indeed. 

To-day there is no position more highly honorable 
than that of a public school teacher. This revolution 
has been the blossoming of thirty-two years of budding 
sentiment, — from 1868 to 1900. For fifteen years the 
system was at low tide in Mississippi. In 1886 a com- 
plete change was made in the school law by the 
legislature. Teachers were required to stand rigid 
examinations before certificates would be issued. Su- 
perintendents were ordered to apportion salaries accord- 
ing to the grade credential held, the executive capacity 
of the teacher, and, though not dependent as formerly 

84 



■ Educational Matters 85 

on the number of pupils in attendance, the size of the 
school was taken into consideration. Payments were 
made promptly at the end of each month and new life 
was infused into methods. 

The benefits of the Peabody educational fund were 
restored to Mississippi in 1893 ; institutes were held and 
in 1896, five summer normals were established for the 
white and an equal number for the black people. The 
moneys for the support of the public schools in each 
of the years 1898-99 amounted to $950,000, including 
the poll-tax, which is $2.00 per head. If there is a 
deficit in the school fund the state treasury supple- 
ments it. When needed, special local taxes can be levied 
by the district; also by the Board of Supervisors for 
continuing the school year longer than the uniform term. 

The legislature, which met in the winter of 1900, 
appropriated one million dollars to common schools for 
the year 1900; also for 1901. Appropriations to the 
state colleges were very liberal. All of this, added to 
local taxation for extending terms, etc., will run the 
public expenditure to $2,000,000 for each year. 

The school fund has steadily increased notwithstand- 
ing disastrous agricultural conditions and the facts that 
the census of 1894 showed that there were 100,000 more 
negro children in Mississippi than white. During the 
scholastic year of 1896-97, 367,579 pupils were enrolled 
in the public schools; of that number 170,811 were 
white and 196,768 were negroes, — the latter being in 
excess of the whites 25,957. The sum set apart for the 
support of the schools is prorated among the educable 
children of the state irrespective of color. 



86 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

The proportional number of negro tax-payers in 
Mississippi is pitiably small ; consequently, some idea 
can be easily gained of the relative amount of taxes 
paid by the white people for the support of colored 
schools. It is difficult to determine what is the best 
policy to pursue in the distribution of the school fund, 
as the races are very unevenly distributed over the state. 
The negroes are massed in the productive districts — the 
Delta, the river counties where planting is conducted 
as extensively as in ante-bellum days. By a strange 
misadjustment, according to the Constitution, in those 
counties where the negro population so heavily prepon- 
derates, third grade teachers receive higher pay than 
first grade instructors in the counties where the white 
people are in excess. From the report of a State Super- 
intendent of Education the following facts are quoted : 
" In the white counties the whites are three-fourths of 
the population ; in the black counties the whites are one- 
fifth of the population. 

" The ten white counties received $87,226 from, the 
state distribution. Of this sum they paid in polls 
$30,166, or 38 per cent of the whole. 

" The ten black counties received from the state dis- 
tribution $170,353, of which they paid in polls $32,459, 
or only 19 per cent of the whole. The white counties 
paid practically the same amount in polls as the black 
counties, while the black counties received nearly twice 
as much from the state distribution." 

In the Superintendent's report of 1891-93, for Mis- 
sissippi, it was declared : " It is a matter of common 
assertion by the uninformed throughout the state that 



Educational Matters 87 

the negroes attend school better than the whites. The 
statistics for 1892-93 show that 73 whites in every 100 
of school age were enrolled in our public schools, while 
less than 60 in every 100 negroes were enrolled. The 
enrollment of both races was 64.8 per cent of all the 
educable children. This is a remarkable enrollment 
when we consider that the legal school age in Missis- 
sippi covers 16 years, from 5 to 21. 

*' According to the report of the Commissioner of 
Education (1889-90) Kansas in 1890 enrolled 27.98 
in every 100 population, which was the highest per- 
centage in the United States, the average being 20.27. 
The enrollment of Mississippi for i892-'93 was 25.97 ^^ 
every 100 population which places us second in the 
Union when both races are considered. 

" But our enrollment of whites was 28.61 in every 
100 of white population, which is greater than the en- 
rollment of Kansas in 1890 by 63 in every 3,000 of the 
population. It is thus shown that our white population, 
as measured by enrollment, are availing themselves of 
the educational advantages provided by the state to a 
greater extent than the people of any state in the 
Union." 

In the same report it was stated that Mississippi " led 
among the Southern states and is ranked eight among 
the states in the Union in the amount expended for edu- 
cation in proportion to the valuation of property." The 
State Superintendent of Education for Alabama makes 
this statement : " Alabama expends annually for her 
schools and education more than one million dollars; 
while her taxes amount scarcely to two millions.". . . . 



88 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

It is said : " The state of New York has an assessed 
valuation greater than all the thirteen Southern states 
combined (Missouri not included), while New England 
and the Middle States together, with an area only two- 
ninths as large as the thirteen Southern states, and with 
a population about equal have three times as much as- 
sessed property. 

'' It is apparent, therefore, that with equal levies these 
wealthier states can maintain schools for ten months 
in the year, v/hile in the South the length of the term 
will not average four months." 

In all comparative statistics between the North and 
the South on the subject of education, or any other, 
it is well to remember the sparseness of population in 
the Southern states. For instance, in the city of New 
York alone there are 1,515,301 inhabitants ! while in the 
entire state of Mississippi there are but 1,289,600 per- 
sons ; there are but three cities of 10,000 or over, and but 
two others, with a population over 5,000. 

In a paper entitled, " What the South Is Doing for 
Education and What Education Is Doing for the 
South," read by Dr. W. T. Harris, U. S. Commissioner 
of Education, in Atlanta, Georgia, October 26, 1895, 
the progress of education was briefly and interestingly 
summed up as follows : 

*' In the past twenty years the South has increased 
fifty-four per cent in population, but its school attend- 
ance has increased 130 per cent; that is to say, more 
than twice as fast as the population. This means that 
there is a larger proportion of the population kept in 
school during the year; while in 1874 an average of 14J 



Educational Matters 89 

out of every hundred were enrolled in school, ten years 
later (1884) the average had risen to i8f per hundred, 
and in 1894, or twenty years later, the number enrolled 
is twenty- two in the hundred. Of all the people of the 
South, white and black, one in five is in attendance on 
school for some portion of the year. This is a large pro- 
portion of the people to be in school. Even in Saxony, 
which excels all countries of Europe in its school en- 
rollment, the per centum in school is only twenty. 

" Even after making allowance for the fact that the 
South has a larger proportion of children in its popula- 
tion than any other section of the Nation, this remains 
a wonderful showing for the wisdom of self-sacrifice 
of the Southern people. They are, indeed, building a 
* New South ' and its corner-stone is the school.'' 



CHAPTER X 

THE SOUTHERN PROBLEM 

According to the order of nature, men being equal, their 
common vocation is the profession of humanity. — Rousseau. 

An effort was made to secure from the auditors and 
treasurers of the thirteen Southern states an official 
statement of the relative amounts of taxes paid by the 
whites and the negroes. Every state of whom the in- 
quiry was made was heard from ; but the information 
desired was unattainable as few keep a separate list of 
taxes paid by the two races. They concurred, however, 
in the following statement : " The great bulk of the pub- 
lic school fund in the South is derived from taxes paid 
by white people. Yet, that fund is distributed on a 
basis of population, so that the negro receives vastly 
more than his proportionate share. And the laws gov- 
erning this taxation and distribution were voluntarily 
enacted by the Southern whites themselves." 

The amount of property listed for taxation by the 
white citizens of North Carolina, as per returns for 
the year 1896, was $221,138,146; for the colored 
$8,516,353. The poll-taxes paid by the whites for the 
same year were $260,865.58; by the negroes, $100,- 
103.74. Taxes accruing from general property of 
whites, $399,554.48; from that of the blacks, $15,- 

90 



The Southern Problem 91 

349.76. Taxes from polls and general property were 
given to the support of the public schools, but no dis- 
crimination was made as to the races. 

The total enrollment of colored children in the public 
schools of South Carolina for 1898 was 150,787; there 
was spent on their education from state funds $204,- 

383-30- 

The white people of Arkansas in 1898 paid taxes 

to the amount of $2,621,538.31 ; the negroes, $132,- 

II 1. 20, — about one-twentieth of the whole tax — but no 

distinction of race was made in distribution of the school 

fund. 

These instances, although probably very much more 
to the credit of the negroes' capacity for aiding in the 
support of the government than some other Southern 
states would show, are sufficient to illustrate what the 
South is doing to lift the colored race by education. 

Very many poll-taxes of the negroes are paid in elec- 
tion years by white aspirants for office who want the 
colored vote. 

The laws of each Southern state, while they provide 
for the education of every youth as nearly as possible, 
yet make distinct provisions for the establishment of 
separate schools for white and black children. Co-edu- 
cation of the races is not tolerated. It is an unwise 
friend of the negro who attempts to alter this custom. It 
is futile to advance a plea for the unreasonableness and 
unrighteousness of race prejudice. It is enough to say 
that it exists in the South and that it will persist there. 
It will not be disputed that the Anglo-Saxon and the 
African in America occupy the relation of superior and 



92 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

inferior races. The inappreciable number of the latter 
in the population of the Northern states precludes the 
question of social equality, — just as nobody thinks of it 
in connection with the Chinese scattered throughout the 
South. In some Southern states the negroes far out- 
number the whites, and are so numerous in all of them 
as to constitute what is called a ** problem." Until the 
present generation they have always existed there as 
slaves. Nowhere on the earth have two races who bear 
or have borne the relation of master and slave existed 
together as social equals ; nor do superior and inferior 
so co-exist anywhere until the superior is degraded to 
the level of the inferior. It is doubtful if there is nat- 
ural race prejudice; that is, if white and black children 
were reared together from the cradle as equals whether 
they would feel an antagonism of stock. Therefore, 
never will the South consent that its tender, unformed 
youth shall have the opportunity in the school-room to 
assimilate with an element that, in its present state, can 
only drag down the high ideals which the Anglo-Saxon 
has wrested from the centuries. Better than any other 
the South knows that if slavery was an evil for the 
negro it was infinitely m.ore a curse to the whites who 
owned the slaves. The blacks leave their deadly, im- 
moral trail wherever massed in large numbers. 

This must be said, notwithstanding a most earnest 
desire for the advancement of the negro by education 
and all other wise means ; and it is said with an old-time 
affection which is a redeeming legacy of the days of 
master and slave, which was a tie of love often stronger 
than blood, whose power a stranger cannot understand ; 



The Southern Problem 93 

and which, alas ! will be known no more when the rem- 
nants of ante-bellum days are gathered to their fathers. 
There is a plantation in Mississippi where until re- 
cently five generations of the old slaves have dwelt as 
tenants upon the soil where most of them were born, 
and to which they clung with an attachment equal to 
that of the owners, and as much more pathetic as it was 
more helpless. " Old Handy " came into the library 
one winter afternoon a few years ago, to pay his " re- 
spec's " to his " white folks." " Tse pow'ful glad to see 
yo' lookin' so well, Marse William, I sho is ! " " Yes, 
Handy, I am well, but I begin to think I'm getting aged. 
I've not realized it all along, but you and I have lived 
quite awhile. Handy ! " " That's so, Marse William, 
an', please Gord, we'll live a pow'ful time yit. Yo' ain' 
broke a bit, suh, not a bit. How long's it ben, Marse 
William, sence yo' bought me? " '' Fully fifty years; 
we were both almost boys then. Handy. You are older 
than I am, you know." " Do yo' 'member dat day yo' 
cum to look at dat batch o' ole marse' niggers what was 
put up to be sole ? " " Oh, yes, I remember it well ! It 
was the first time I ever bought a hand." " When yo' 
look at me as if yo' had sum intrus' in me, Marse Gil- 
lispie he say, ' Lor', Bill, yo' doan' want dat nigger ; 
he'll neber do yer no good ; he's dat fractious he's in de 
cane-brake near 'bout de bes' part o' his time.' Member 
dat, Marse William ? " " Just the same as if it were 
yesterday." " An' den yo' kinder sarch me all ober wid 
yer eyes, an' at las' yo' say, ' He doan' look lak a bad 
nigger, I doan' b'lieve he'd run away ef he wur treated 
right." " Yes, and I bought you then and there I " 



94 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

" An' I ain' neber run away, 'fore Gord, from dat day 
to dis ! Is I, Marse William ? " " No, no, Handy, you 
and I have had no trouble all these years, — and now we 
are old men, not boys any longer." *' Folks talk 'bout 
hard times ! / ain' neber seed no hard times sence I cum 
home wid yo' dat day. I'se had plenty ter eat, an' ter 
war, an' a house ober my haid an' good Ian' ter wuk, 
an' good white folks to cyar fur me. I doan' know de 
meanin' o' hard times." 

Not long after the plantation was shocked to hear- 
that " Marse William " was sick, a thing they had never 
known to happen in all the long past. His present fac- 
totum, once his coachman, later his butler, brought a 
cot-mattress, and said firmly to the wife, *' Miss Annie, 
I ain' gwine ter leave Marse William, day ner night, 
I'm 'bleeged to wait on him. We ain' neber hyeard o' 
his bein' sick in our lives. Tom, dat grown boy o' mine, 
'ill sleep out in de hall ter keep up de fires." Two by 
two others volunteered to be within call in the library 
where they waited many nights. 

Anxiety deepened and soon groups of old slaves were 
ever to be found in the hall down stairs waiting for the 
latest word from the sick-room ; moaning out to " Miss 
Annie " or the doctor as they passed, '' Doan' let Marse 
William die! Who'd take cyar o' us ef he went. We 
cyant gib him up ! We ain' nebber knowed nobody else." 

Faithful old George stayed day and night by the bed- 
side of pain, till he came out sobbing aloud one morning 
to tell the waiting crowds that " Marse William " had 
gone beyond the sound of their voices into the greater 
worlds where they could not follow yet. Then the heart 



The Southern Problem gS 

of the plantation seemed to break. The oldest of the ex- 
slaves requested that they might be " Marse William's 
pall-bearers/'— and they were. The rest of them filled 
the galleries of the church from which he was buried, 
and in which for so many years he had been an elder ; 
and to-day he is the highest ideal that life has brought 
to his ante-bellum servants. Those who are left are the 
most self-respecting and respected, as well as most ef- 
ficient and faithful helpers on the plantation. 

Let it be said here, and said with all the emphasis 
the fact involves, that none of the " outrages " which 
have so often disgraced the nation since the civil war 
are the deeds of the old slave, nor is the " vengeance " 
that of the old master and rarely that of his sons. It is 
the new element of both races that wars one on the 
other. This statement has been made of late many 
times, in many ways, by the Southern press. The fol- 
lowing from a leading South Carolina journal fully ex- 
presses the sentiment of all in respect to the men 
engaged in the atrocity of lynching: " They represent 
Southern chivalry as little as the residents of the New 
York slums represent the Christian civilization of the 
North. Ravening mobs are not composed of gentle- 
men." The " Atlanta Constitution " had just said, in ref- 
erence to that appalling lynching in Georgia, " Unless 
public opinion in the South begins to act in an unmis- 
takable way, the lawless and ruffianly element which ex- 
ists in all communities will make itself judge, jury and 
public executioner, and its victims may be innocent or 
guilty. It will only be necessary to suspect them of 
some crime. We shall have the courts abolished, and 



96 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

all classes of crime will be punished by the lawless ele- 
ment. Negroes will not be the only victims. Whites 
will fall under the ban of ruffianism, and we shall have 
such a state of things that civil war will be necessary 
to restore to the courts and to society their normal 
functions." 

Another journal, in reference to the recent horrible 
occurrence in Kentucky says, " It is to the credit of the 
South that her public men and newspapers have been as 
earnest, if not as bitter, in their criticisms as have those 
of the North. Hardly a voice has been raised or a line 
written in condonation of the affair." The people rep- 
resentative of the best element throughout the South 
are strongly opposed to lynching and deeply deplore 
outbreaks of mob violence. They are urging as a 
remedial measure that as soon as possible after a crime 
is committed court shall meet, a jury be impanelled and 
inquiry be made into the charge. If an indictment is 
found that a short and fair trial shall be held immedi- 
ately or as quickly as the ends of justice may require." 

There is now and has been for a long time a feeling 
of insecurity in the South wherever there are many 
negroes. The ladies of a household — especially in rural 
districts — are seldom left alone day or night ; and care 
is taken that they do not linger late upon the road when 
walking or driving in the afternoons or remain unpro- 
tected anywhere at any hour for any length of time. 
Southern women have perfect faith, however, in the 
power of the courts to protect them and believe that the 
prompt enforcement of law is the safeguard of any com- 
munity. 



The Southern Problem 97 

That the punishment of crime by any other tribunal 
than the quaHfied and authorized one is a rapidly in- 
fectious and highly dangerous lawlessness, is proven by 
the fact that within the last decade there has scarcely 
been a state or territory in the Union which has not 
suffered from one or more of these atrocities. The 
question, therefore, is national in its bearings. Still, as 
the South has the bulk of the negro population, the bur- 
den of the responsibility for the negro problem, of which 
the lynching is but one phase, rests there, and sooner or 
later the Southern people will settle it in justice and 
righteousness. 

The world is scarcely beginning to realize the enor- 
mity of the situation that faces the South in its grapple 
with the negro problem which was thrust upon it at the 
close of the civil war when 4,500,000 ex-slaves, illiterate 
and semi-barbarous, were enfranchised. Such a situa- 
tion has no parallel in history. In forging a path out of 
the darkness there are no precedents to lead the way. 
All that has been and is being accomplished is pioneer 
states-craft. The South has struggled under its death- 
weight for over thirty years bravely and magnani- 
mously. As an ex-governor of a Southern state has 
truly said : " The South has her ills, her sins and her 
crimes. What section has not? The South has had 
and will have violent shocks to her civilization. What 
section has not? The South has had her sorrows. 
God knows they have been grievous and hard to be en- 
dured. Whenever the South finds an ideal government 
without sin, a people perfect in law and perfect in its 
enforcement, the South will do its respectful obeisance 



98 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

and ask to be led into its broader civilization and its 
better power. Till then, and not till then, we shall stand 
abreast of all other sections, claiming as broad a civiliza- 
tion as any and challenging those without sin to cast 
the first stone at us." 

"What shall be done with the negro?" far out- 
weighs for the American people all questions of terri- 
torial expansion, for we have the African as a factor 
of our internal relations, our domestic policy and our 
every day life. It has been thought by some social 
scientists that a process of amalgamation would grad- 
ually absorb the negro. 

There is no state in the South where legal miscegena- 
tion exists. Intermarriage is rendered void, the con- 
tracting parties are driven from a community and the 
minister who performs the ceremony is subjected to 
punishment. Besides, instinct and tradition oppose in- 
surmountable barriers to such a solution. 

As to the extent of illegal mixture of the races the 
following figures, from a reliable source, will afford 
some light: '' Of the whole African population 728,099, 
in 1890, in the North Atlantic, North Central and West- 
ern states, 28 per cent were mulattoes. In the South 
Atlantic and the South central divisions at this time, 
there were 6,741,941 persons of African descent, of 
whom 13 per cent were mulattoes." 

Another proposal has been the colonization of the 
negro in Africa and our newly acquired possessions. 
Left to himself, as in Hayti, the negro has always de- 
generated, and proved incapable of self-government. 
Whatever attempts have been made at colonization, as 



The Southern Problem 99 

in Liberia, have been abortive. The negro himself is 
violently opposed to transportation; only the unsettled 
and thriftless want to go; and as has been said by a 
leading journal, " If 2,000 were sent out every week of 
the year, that number would simply equal their natural 
increase in this land." 

Although the death rate among the negroes is great, 
as has been shown in a previous chapter, it is not prob- 
able that the problem will be solved by extinction. Ac- 
cording to the last census there were almost twice as 
many in the United States as when the civil war closed. 

Southern statesmen are trying disfranchisement of 
the colored men as a solution of the vexed question. The 
white people of the South are equally intolerant of the 
social equality and the political domination of the black 
man. Every device has been tried to prevent the power 
of his vote — from a shot-gun to a Constitutional amend- 
ment. By the latter method, in 1890, Mississippi, with 
an educational qualification, legally and peacefully 
ejected the masses of the negroes from politics. This 
initiative has been followed by South Carolina and by 
Louisiana. The South's representation in the national 
government is not thereby lessened, as it is based upon 
population and not upon voters. 

This system has worked admirably, so far, in sub- 
stituting a rule of intelligence for that of ignorance ; it 
is worth the serious consideration of all states that have 
a large foreign population. Every year the movement 
to make the wishes of the rank and file supreme is gain- 
ing ground with the American people, as is evidenced 
by the growth of the initiative and referendum and by 

L.cTC. 



loo A Slaveholder's Daughter 

direct primaries. Only an intelligent suffragist is capa- 
ble or worthy of so high a prerogative, and especially 
must he be educated in and imbued with the spirit of 
the American government. A large part of the foreign 
population that lands on our shores is less capable than 
the negro of American citizenship; it not only has no 
more education but must divest itself of previous pre- 
dilections as to government. 

If educational and property limitations of the fran- 
chise are not sufficient to ensure white supremacy at 
the South it could certainly be established by the follow- 
ing plan, submitted by Henry B. Blackwell, of Boston, 
Mass. He says, " The enactment of a law enabling 
women able to read and write to vote would at once so 
enlarge the political forces of intelligence and morality 
as to control the negro vote and the illiterate vote, ab- 
solutely, in every Southern state, as will be seen by the 
following figures taken from the United States census 
of 1880, the latest available ones for the purpose of com- 
parison: In every Southern state but one there are 
more educated women than all the illiterate voters, 
white and black, native and foreign, combined. An 
overwhelming political preponderance of intelligence 
can be fairly and honestly attained at any time by the 
enfranchisement of the women who can read and write, 
ten out of eleven of whom are white women. 

" By the last available census there were, on the pres- 
ent basis of universal male suffrage, in the Southern 
states and District of Columbia, 2,947,434 white voters, 
of whom 411,900 were unable to write, and 1,252,484 
colored voters, of whom 951,444 were unable to write. 



The Southern Problem loi 

But in these states there were also 2,293,698 white 
women over 21 who could write, and 236,865 colored 
women who could write. If these two and a half million 
educated women were made voters, their votes would 
offset the entire illiterate voters, both black and white, 
who number, all told, only 1,363,344, v/hich surplus, 
when added to the 2,836,574, educated male voters, 
would make an educated voting majority of over 
4,000,000.'* 

To my mind, the solution of the negro problem lies 
in the establishment of the home and in industrial educa- 
tion. The word home is as foreign to the negro's vocab- 
ulary as to the Frenchman's. As a rule the colored 
people dwell herded in their cabins, which usually con- 
sist of but one room. In this men, women and little 
children " live and move and have their being — " often 
most numerously. Remaining long in one location is a 
sort of intimation of slavery, so they change their quar- 
ters frequently. They, as yet, have acquired little sense 
of the dignity of ownership. Prosperity can attend no 
people who are indifferent to possessions, for this indi- 
cates a want of purpose, and a failure to grasp the 
fundamental principles of personal and public welfare. 

There is, however, a more potential factor in the de- 
velopment of the home than the proprietorship of an 
abiding place, and that is the maintenance of the family 
life in unity and sanctity. Hon. James Brice has wisely 
said : " The family is the fundamental problem of civili- 
zation." The negro's condition will remain hopeless 
until he acquires higher moral ground. That is the 
secret of his destiny. This elevation will be effected 



I02 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

through a truer concept of Christianity. Stonewall 
Jackson said : ** It is necessary to put the strong hand 
of the gospel under the ignorant African race to lift 
them up." It is a matter of rejoicing that the negroes 
have built since the civil war 19,753 churches, costing 
over $20,000,000. It is not the church that will redeem 
them, however, but the spirit of God in the church ; the 
possession of a religion that will purify the life — at least 
from the grossest sins. '' The hope of the black race," 
Bishop Haygood thought, " Hes mainly in the pulpit." 

Industrial training, resulting in the power to produce, 
will lead to the ability to gain and retain property, and 
will thus become an agent for the acquisition and de- 
velopment of the home. The two leading institutions 
in the South for the education of the negro are Hamp- 
ton Normal and Agricultural College, at Hampton, Vir- 
ginia, and Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, 
at Tuskegee, Alabama. The principal of the latter is 
Booker T. Washington, who was born a slave, but is 
now the most noted colored man in America, and the 
foremost educator and the leader of the 8,000,000 ne- 
groes of this country. The institute at Tuskegee under 
his able and discreet management, has grown to vast 
proportions and its influence for good is broadly felt. 

In the session of 1898 it enrolled 1,047 students ; they 
came from twenty-four states and territories and from 
two foreign countries. Work to the amount of $45,- 
288.10 has been done by the students while pursuing 
their course of study. They cultivate 650. acres of land 
besides keeping in constant operation twenty-four other 
industries. Graduates from this institution are now fol- 



The Southern Problem 103 

lowing almost every industrial and professional avoca- 
tion. By giving to the world trained, self-supporting 
workmen Booker T Washington is doing much to solve 
the problem of his race. He says, very truthfully, " In 
our education of the black man so far, we have failed in 
a large degree to educate along the very line along 
which most of the colored people especially need help. 
. . . The fact is that 90 per cent of our people depend 
upon the common occupations for a living, and, outside 
of the cities, 85 per cent depend upon agriculture for 
support. Notwithstanding this our people have been 
educated since the war in everything else but the very 
things that most of them live by. . . . First-class train- 
ing in agriculture, horticulture, dairying, stock raising, 
the mechanical arts and domestic economy, will make 
us intelligent producers, and not only help us contribute 
our proportion as tax-payers, but will result in retain- 
ing much money in the state that now goes outside for 
that which can be produced in the state. An institution 
that will give this training of the hand, along with the 
highest mental culture, will soon convince our people 
that their salvation is in the ownership of property, in- 
dustrial and business development, rather than mere 
political agitation. 

" The great problem now is, how to get the masses 
to the point where they can be sure of a comfortable 
living and be prepared to save a little something each 
year. This can be accomplished only by putting among 
the masses as fast as possible, strong, well-trained lead- 
ers in the industrial walks of life." 

It has been said by an educator of colored youth, in 



I04 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

reference to ante-bellum days, that " There never was a 
peasantry better trained in agriculture peculiar to the 
South, and in the mechanical arts necessary to its suc- 
cessful operation, than the colored people. Spinning, 
weaving, cutting and making garments, working in 
iron, wood and leather v/ere parts of the industries of 
every plantation of any size." With the introduction 
of a new regime this form of education was supplanted 
by training in the classics and professions. To-day the 
young Southern negro, born since the war, en masse, is 
the most imtrained, inefficient yeoman in existence in 
any civilized country. 

In the slave states alone, it is said, the blacks have 
281 normal schools, 238 universities and colleges and 
270 institutions for secondary instruction. Yet all this 
education has not perceptibly advanced the moral status 
of the race. 

It has been proven that the negro is able to grasp 
the higher education ; but the number of those who 
seek it is small. On the testimony of teachers among 
the negroes it has been stated that only about six per 
cent out of the thousands who have been instructed in 
the great missionary schools in the South have seized 
the opportunity for advanced education. A negro has 
won prizes of distinction at Harvard ; others have 
graduated from leading colleges and universities; a 
colored man has written a Greek grammar ; an ex-slave 
of General Joe Davis, of Mississippi, graduated at Fisk 
University and at Oberlin and went as a missionary to 
Africa. He has helped to reduce a native language to 
writing, prepared a dictionary and grammar of it, and 



The Southern Problem 105 

published a translation of much of the New. Testa- 
ment. 

The president of a State Normal College in Missis- 
sippi for the negroes says he had a student who could 
read one hundred and twenty-five consecutive verses of 
Homer's Iliad without one mistake; but it was impos- 
sible for that same student to copy a figure in analytical 
geometry. To others who had mathematical gifts the 
languages were unattainable. Of course, these cases of 
unusual attainment are exceptional. 

In a lecture given in Memphis, Tennessee, February, 
1899, Judge James M. Greer presented a definition of 
the negro that will be endorsed by every Southerner 
who knew him, as the judge did, in ante-bellum days. 
The one generation since has not been long enough to 
materially change him, except as he has fluctuated in 
the chaos of his upheaval from slavery to the freedom 
to follow his undisciplined will and his disorganized 
circumstances. There will be much sympathy with 
these true and kindly words of Judge Greer : " I knew 
him so intimately in my own childhood, knew him as 
the trusted, loyal slave ; knew him as my friend and my 
inferior, that I believe I may say to you that he was an 
anomaly in history and a contradiction in human nature. 
If he was wanting in settled purpose and determined 
mental effort, he was also without malicious hatred or 
puling complaint. If he had the thoughtlessness of 
childhood, he had also its faith. If he was religious 
without reason, he was devout without hypocrisy. . . . 
If he was without fixed principles in his life, he was 
kind in his impulse. If he was without the knowledge 



io6 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

of books, he had gained much from observation. If he 
never originated, he readily imitated. If his courage 
was small, his rebellions were few. If his family ties 
were weak and his domestic life fickle, his humor was 
great and his charity enormous. If he was uncertain 
in the line of meum and tuum, he was generous in dis- 
tribution, hospitable in the extreme, and improvident 
always. If he was without profound wisdom, he was 
also without deep sorrow. 

" I may say of him truthfully that he was a humorist 
without wit, a lover without constancy, a poet without 
words, a father without control, a husband without 
rights, a slave without hatred, a friend without equality, 
an inferior without resentment, a human without 
ambition, a man without a country. He became a 
soldier without discipline, a politician without states- 
manship, and a freeman without ceasing to be a child." 



CHAPTER XI 

EVOLUTION OF SOUTHERN WOMEN 

The only conclusive evidence of a man's sincerity is that he 
gives himself for a principle. Words, money, all things else 
are comparatively easy to give away ; but when a man makes 
a gift of his daily life and practice, it is plain that the truth, 
whatever it may be, has taken possession of him. — Lowell. 

During the Southern Exposition in 1884, my second 
trip was made to New Orleans. The world had 
changed considerably to me since my first visit : my eyes 
had grown accustomed to larger visions. Since begin- 
ning to teach, every question that related to the attain- 
ments and possibilities of women was of intense 
interest to me; but especially her developed power of 
bread-winning. 

Julia Ward Howe was lecturing in the city. She was 
the first woman I had ever heard speak before a public 
audience, except students on a school rostrum. Never 
can the eagerness be forgotten with which my feet 
hastened to the hall where she was to be heard, nor the 
absorption with which my listening ears drew in every 
word, nor the critical attention that was given to every 
detail of the speaker's appearance, from the lace cap that 
rested on her brainy head down to the toes of her com- 
mon-sense boots. 

She spoke on " Woman's Work." As she talked 

107 



io8 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

brilliantly and fluently my enchantment grew. The re- 
mark that she had visited several foreign countries and 
had addressed the women of each in their own tongue 
particularly impressed me. How far away those 
strange lands seemed ! How wonderful to be looking 
at a person who had really seen them ! Going to Europe 
had been the dream of my life, and here was a woman 
who had actually been there ! For many years an earn- 
est desire had possessed me to behold a genuinely 
strong-minded woman, — one of the truly advanced 
type. Beautiful to realize, she stood before me ! and in 
a position the very acme of independence — upon a plat- 
form delivering a speech ! 

Since the development of my reasoning faculties I 
had believed in the rights of women, although in an 
article on that subject, written at the age of nineteen, 
I had affirmed " that we do not ask for the ballot." It 
would have been too shocking, and my radicalism at that 
period was in the chrysalis state. There was born in 
me a sense of the injustice that had always been heaped 
upon my sex, and this consciousness created and sus- 
tained in me a constant and ever increasing rebellion. 
The definite idea of the political emancipation of 
woman, as a happy and logical solution of the vexed 
question, did not present itself to me in a positive guise 
until some time after my entrance upon the list of 
wage-earners. 

Mother and father had reared me in a very liberal 
atmosphere concerning the intellectual and political 
status of women, for they were both advocates of woman 
suffrage ; father was particularly ardent. He had often 



Evolution of Southern Women 109 

said that it filled him with humiliation to think that his 
wife and daughter were not his equals before the law ; 
and with indignation that the mother of his children 
could be looked on in any other light. 

It gives me deep joy to remember that later on in 
our experience, on mother's sixty-seventh birthday, she 
drove with me four miles through the country to attend 
a suffrage meeting which I addressed. An Equal 
Rights club was organized in which mother assisted. 
Father, who was at that time seventy-one years of age, 
was made its president. Another fact that I remember 
gratefully is that it was my privilege to serve the Mis- 
sissippi State Woman Suffrage Association for awhile 
as its president. 

Notwithstanding father's broad-minded position in 
the earlier days it did not occur to him that his daughter 
might desire to enter the field of active modern workers. 
That was " the pinch ; " but since my way had been 
fought into public school teaching he had never opposed 
my progressive views nor interfered with my under- 
takings. By gradual stages he became alive to every 
issue in which my interest was involved and did all in 
his power to further my projects. He began to consult 
my opinion on important affairs. Every family trouble, 
every enterprise, every hope was discussed between us. 
Perfect freedom of thought and expression had been al- 
lowed me since my birth, and absolute freedom of action 
since my thirteenth year. The privilege had been 
granted of selecting my own clothes and choosing my 
own companions. After the beginning of my teens 
father and mother never said to me, " You shall do this," 



no A Slaveholder's Daughter 

or " You shall not do that." Since my clash of ideas 
with father at nineteen, he has asked me at the begin- 
ning of each year : " Well, daughter, what are your 
plans ? " Often when he has been implored to direct 
me on certain subjects or to criticize my actions he has 
invariably said: '* You must exercise your own judg- 
ment. I have perfect faith in your powers of discrim- 
ination." Mother endorsed these sentiments fervidly. 

The freedom of my home environment was perfect, 
but I recognized the fact that there were tremendous 
limitations of my " personal liberty " outside the family 
circle. An instance of it soon painfully impressed my 
consciousness. Three of my brothers, the comrades of 
my childhood, had become voting citizens. They were 
manly and generous enough to sympathize with my 
ballotless condition, but it was the source of many jokes 
at my expense among them. On a certain election day 
in November, they mounted their horses and started for 
the polls. I stood watching them as they rode off in the 
splendor of their youth and strength. I was full of 
love and pride for them, but was feeling keenly the dis- 
grace of being a disfranchised mortal, simply on ac- 
count of having been born a woman, — and that by no 
volition of my own. Surmising the storm that was 
raging in my heart, my second brother — who was at 
home from the West on a visit of over a year's duration 
— looking at me, smiling and lifting his hat in mock 
courtesy said : " Good morning, sister. You taught 
us and trained us in the way we should go. You gave 
us money from your hard earnings, and helped us to get 
a start in the world. You are interested infinitely more 



Evolution of Southern Women 1 1 1 

in good government and understand politics a thpusand 
times better than we, but it is election day and we leave 
you at home with the idiots and Indians, incapables, 
paupers, lunatics, criminals and the other women that 
the authorities in this nation do not deem it proper to 
trust with the ballot; while we, lordly men, march to 
the polls and express our opinions in a way that 
counts." 

There was the echo of a general laugh as they rode 
away. A salute was waved to them and a good-by 
smiled in return; but my lips were trembling and my 
eyes were dim with tears. For the first time the fact 
was apparent that a wide gulf stretched between my 
brothers and me ; that there was a plane, called political 
equality, upon which we could not stand together. We 
had the same home, the same parents, the same facul- 
ties, the same general outlook. We had loved the same 
things and striven for the same ends and had been 
equals in all respects. Noiv I was set aside as inferior, 
inadequate for citizenship, not because of inferior qual- 
ity or achievement but by an arbitrary discrimination 
that seemed as unjust as it was unwise. I too had to 
live under the laws ; then why was it not equally my 
interest and privilege, to elect the officers who were to 
make and execute them ? I was a human being and a 
citizen, and a self-supporting, producing citizen, yet my 
government took no cognizance of me except to set me 
aside with the unworthy and the incapable for whom 
the state was forced to provide. 

That experience made me a woman suffragist, 
avowed and uncompromising. Deep down in my heart 



IIZ A Slaveholder's Daughter 

a vow was made that day that never should satisfaction 
come to me until by personal effort I had helped to put 
the ballot into the hands of woman. It became a mas- 
tering purpose of my life. 

The women of the South have not sought work be- 
cause they loved it ; they have not gone before the public 
because it was desirable for themselves; they have not 
arrived at the wish for political equality with men 
simply by a process of reasoning; all this has been 
thrust upon them by a changed social and economic en- 
vironment. It is the result of the evolution of events 
which was set in motion by the bombardment of Fort 
Sumter. 

At the close of the war when the entire South was 
lying prostrate and bleeding ; her fertile fields left bare 
and desolate, her lovely homes ravaged by fire and 
sword ; her young men slaughtered or disabled ; her 
commercial streams choked and stagnated; her system 
of labor utterly and forever destroyed ; her social affilia- 
tions blasted and every feature of life dazed and revolu- 
tionized, the women of that unhappy time arose in the 
majesty of their hitherto undreamed-of strength and 
with forceful calmness and unmurmuring determina- 
tion, put their hands figuratively and literally to the 
plow and have never faltered nor looked back. Their 
heroism has not been known as it deserves. When, 
after the war, the men were dying all about them from 
the hardships that they had endured in the field of bat- 
tle, the mother-heart of the South said, " Somebody 
must live for the sake of our children " — and the women 
lived and worked. Those of the better classes had been 



Evolution of Southern Women 113 

accustomed to the control and management of servants 
and households, often of large planting interests. They 
were full of resources, and their naturally flexible tem- 
perament made readjustment easier to them than to 
men. For a decade or more, the boys usually went to 
work at the time they should have entered college, partly 
from necessity, partly because many of them had served 
in the Confederate army and preferred work to the con- 
finement of a student's life. The daughters were. sent 
to college ; every sacrifice was made for this end, until, 
after fifteen years, the superiority of culture of the 
young woman over the average young man was very 
noticeable. Improving circumstances gradually cor- 
rected this inequality : but the tide had set toward the 
advancement of women in the educational and industrial 
field. 

Now, over the South, boarding schools and academies 
with their meagre curriculum have been supplanted by 
industrial institutes and colleges where young women 
are drilled in common-sense pursuits that will fit them 
to be bread-winners ; sending them out into the world 
with skilled hands and trained minds. Medical colleges 
once devoted wholly to men are now equally open to 
women. Among these is the State Medical College of 
South Carolina, at Charleston, Tulane University of 
New Orleans, Louisiana, and Johns Hopkins at Balti- 
more, Maryland. The following state institutions are 
co-educational: University of Alabama, Arkansas In- 
dustrial University, University of Mississippi, Uni- 
versity of Missouri, University of North Carolina, Uni- 
versity of Tennessee, University of Texas, West Vir- 



114 ^ Slaveholder's Daughter 

ginia University, South Carolina College, Alabama Ag- 
ricultural and Mechanical College, Mississippi Agri- 
cultural and Mechanical College; also for the negro 
race Delaware State College for Colored Students, Al- 
corn Agricultural and Mechanical College (Missis- 
sippi), and Agricultural and Mechanical College 
(North Carolina). Very much after the order of Har- 
vard and Columbia, the doors of the University of Ala- 
bama have been opened to young women. The annex 
is named for Miss Julia Tutwiler, the noted Alabama 
educator, who has done more to secure the opportunities 
now granted the girls than any other woman in her 
state. 

Four Southern states have industrial schools for 
white girls : — Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and South 
Carolina. Mississippi w,as the first State in the Union 
to have a State Industrial College ; also the first to have 
an Industrial College for Girls. There were industrial 
schools, but not as planned in Mississippi by the State 
for the girls. 

Nearly all public normal schools in the South are co- 
educational. The custom is gaining in favor and there 
is a pronounced sentiment for allowing women to hold 
administrative situations in the educational system. In 
the field of instruction Southern women occupy an hon- 
ored position. There are thousands of women teachers 
in the common schools of the South to-day, besides 
hundreds of college professors, principals of high 
schools, presidents of normals, county superintendents 
of education, school commissioners, members of school 
boards and committees on examination. 



Evolution of Southern Women 115 

Two prominent women asked the State Superintend- 
ent of Education of Louisiana not long since what pro- 
portion of women were employed in the public schools 
of that state. He replied that there were about nine- 
teen-twentieths. This is a fair average of women 
teachers in all the Southern states. Two-thirds of the 
425,000 teachers now in the United States are women. 

There were 1,391 more women teachers in the city 
of Baltimore, in December, 1896, than male teachers. 
It is a significant fact that the salaries of women teach- 
ers in nearly every Southern state, probably in all, are 
smaller than those of male teachers, — which fact may 
be stated as general for most states of the Union. Less 
pay for the same amount and character of work is a 
cause as potential in arousing the unrest of women as 
that they are taxed to support a government that denies 
them representation. 

Hundreds of missionaries go out from among South- 
ern women every few years into home and foreign 
mission fields and almost every group of worshipers, 
however small, has a woman's missionary society. The 
majority of churches welcome women to their pulpits 
and Southern women evansfelists are counted with the 
most successful in the United States of either sex. 
Some denominations allow women to represent them 
in their local councils and send them as delegates to 
legislate in ecclesiastical assemblies. In the South, as 
everywhere, women constitute two-thirds of the mem- 
bership of the young people's church societies. Young 
Southern women are beginning to ask for deaconesses* 
orders and although not allowed to expound the Scrip- 



1 1 6 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

tures as ordained ministers, yet some have graduated 
from schools of theology and many more are being pre- 
pared unconsciously to officiate as clergymen in the 
splendid drills they are receiving in gospel training 
schools, and the active work of the Young Woman's 
Christian Association. Women are superintendents of 
Sunday-schools, collecting stewards and elders, and are 
filling almost every office known to the church except 
that of pastor. 

From early Colonial times women have conducted 
newspapers in the South, written articles on strong- 
minded subjects and produced many works of fiction; 
but it was left to the women of these later days to blos- 
som into full-fledged journalists, editors, reporters and 
managers of great dailies, proprietors of magazines and 
authors of books, forming a growing and brilliant host. 

A young lady of New Orleans told me that she was 
not allowed, several years ago, to go shopping on the 
most elegant business street of that city without a chap- 
erone; afterward she became a reporter for one of the 
most influential papers, going out alone at all hours of 
the day and night. This has been the experience of 
many Southern girls. Numbers of women belong to 
press associations in the South, and some are presidents 
of these important bodies. Clubs, literary, industrial, 
scientific and political, abound from one end of the 
South to the other. Railroads are employing Southern 
women as bookkeepers and telegraph operators, and 
they are acceptably filling the responsible position of 
freight and passenger agent. They are seen behind 
counters as clerks, in drug stores as pharmacists, in of- 



Evolution of Southern Women 117 

fices by the score as typewriters and stenographers. We 
find them successful merchants, hotel keepers, farmers 
and cattle ranchers, state librarians, cashiers of banks, 
postmasters, artists, sculptors, architects and musicians, 
presidents of banks, police matrons, trained nurses, su- 
perintendents of hospitals, instructors of gymnasiums, 
steamboat captains, and officials in the employ of our 
national government, supporting not only themselves 
but often large families. Southern women are rapidly 
entering the professions of law and medicine ; many are 
promising amateur practitioners, while others have al- 
ready reached the zenith of the expert. 

When a man married a wealthy woman of the South, 
a few decades ago, all of her property passed into the 
hands of her husband. Mississippi claims the honor of 
being the first state in the Union to bestow the right 
upon married women of full control of their property. 
Since it took the initiative, in 1880, the measure has 
become popular, not only in the South, but in many 
other states. 

When the bill giving women the control of their 
property was before the Mississippi legislature, its op- 
ponents argued against it on the ground that if passed 
and allowed to go into execution, it would disrupt fam- 
ilies. This idea of the disruption of families has been 
a terror that has hounded the steps of the reformer for 
generations, but the home tie seems to remain unruffled, 
through all the revolutions. 

Southern women have developed marvelously as 
lecturers and organizers in philanthropic movements. 
Nearly every state in the South can boast of women 



1 1 8 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

orators who have addressed hundreds of enthusiastic 
audiences and unflinchingly pushed their way through 
overwhelming difficulties to positions of influence and 
power. 

Modern reformations have gained a foothold in the 
hearts and lives of Southern women that is astonishing 
to all who realize the intense conservatism that fettered 
them in other days. 

The Woman's Christian Temperance Union was the 
golden key that unlocked the prison doors of pent-up 
possibilities. It was the generous liberator, the joyous 
iconoclast, the discoverer, the developer of Southern 
women. It, above all other forces, made it possible for 
women to occupy the advanced and continually advanc- 
ing position they now hold. A position that is leading 
steadily to the highest pinnacle that can be reached in 
civil government, namely, the political emancipation of 
women. The hungry avidity with which the brainy, 
philosophical women of the South are taking hold of 
this great subject is something at which we cannot won- 
der. It is the natural outcome of their desperate 
struggles for individual freedom. This sentiment for 
woman suffrage is not confined to one sex, by any 
means. I have always maintained, and do now insist, 
that Southern men, as a rule, are stronger advocates 
for the enfranchisement of women than men in any 
other section of the United States except in certain por- 
tions of the West. The old-time element of chivalry, 
which constituted so largely the make-up of the South- 
ern gentleman, has been handed down through the gen- 
erations and now begins to crystalize in the direction 



Evolution of Southern Women 1 19 

of equality before the law for men and women. South- 
ern people are hospitable to reforms, whether they come 
in the guise of reHgion, philanthropy or politics, if 
justice and righteousness lie at the foundation. The 
movement for woman suffrage has advanced slowly in 
the South, because very slight effort has been made 
there to secure the ballot for women, and the thought 
is somewhat a new one to the masses. For years, in 
different Southern states I have heard prominent men 
say : " If women want to vote, it is all right. We have 
no objection. As human beings, they are entitled to the 
same privileges as we are, and require the same legal 
protection. We do not give them the ballot because 
they do not seem to desire it. Just as soon as they de- 
mand it, they will get it." 

When the constitutional convention was held in Mis- 
sissippi, a few years since, suffrage came very near be- 
ing granted to the women of that state ; and in South 
Carolina, soon after, the bill introduced in the legis- 
lature for woman's enfranchisement was lost by a 
remarkably small vote in the senate. In 1898, the state 
of Louisiana, by constitutional enactment, gave to all 
tax-paying women the right to vote upon all questions 
submitted to the tax-payers. 

There are several states in the South that give women 
the right of suffrage to a limited degree, and whenever 
they have exercised that privilege they have been 
treated with the utmost deference by the male citizens 
who met them on an equal footing at the polls. Ken- 
tucky enjoys the distinction of being the first state in 
the nation to grant suffrage in any form to women. 



120 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

This was done as early as 1838. Of course, there are 
thousands of men in the South, as elsewhere, who are 
heavily coated with an impenetrable crust of prejudice 
concerning the hoary creed of " woman's sphere," who 
would oppose bitterly any effort made for her enfran- 
chisement, just as they would fight any other progres- 
sive measure. To this class belong the liquor dealers, 
the wily politicians of the lower stamp, the ultra-con- 
servative ecclesiastics, the superfine " swells " and men 
who have risen from the humbler walks of life deprived 
of early advantages of education and the refinements 
of elevated home environments. 

Exactly as there are opponents among men, so are 
there thousands of women in the South who have ar- 
rayed themselves in a belligerent attitude toward the 
movement that was instituted especially for their well- 
being. There are multitudes of others who are still in a 
deep sleep regarding the necessity of having the ballot, 
and are continuing to drone the old song in their slum- 
bers : " I have all the rights I want ; " but there are 
many of their sisters who are beginning to rub their 
eyes and look up with a glad surprise upon the new day 
that is breaking, while scores of others have shattered 
every shackle that bound them to the old conditions and 
have walked out boldly into the flood-tide of the most 
benignant evolution that the centuries have brought 
to them, and are working with heart and brain on fire 
to materialize into legislation the most potential gift that 
civilization can bestow. 

There are woman suffrage societies in every state in 
the South, and equal rights conventions are constantly 



Evolution of Southern Women 121 

being held. There are women everlastingly busy in 
sending out suffrage literature, lecturing and organiz- 
ing political equality clubs, in supplying articles for the 
press, in appearing before legislatures and committees 
and interviewing representatives, in canvassing towns 
and counties, and in every other way laboring to pro- 
mulgate the divine doctrine of equality, realizing that 
'.when men and women " shall know the truth, . . the 
truth shall make " them '' free." 

A striking illustration of what sort of energy and 
persistence is in the Southern character is shown in the 
efforts of a young, woman who was born in South Car- 
olina, and brought by her parents at the age of seven 
to Mississippi, where she was reared on a farm near 
Meridian. From her earliest years, she was possessed 
of a great love for natural science, and was filled with 
an ambition for a liberal education: but she was poor, 
and the future looked shadowy and forbidding. It was 
not so dark, however, as not to be overcome by a relent- 
less energy. At one time her brother playfully gave 
her the large sum of five cents. With this a yard of 
calico was bought, out of which she manufactured a 
sunbonnet and sold it for twenty-five cents. That 
amount was invested in more calico, and a dress was 
made and sold ; then reinvestments followed till $12 was 
realized. She persuaded her father to let her have an 
acre of ground to cultivate for a year ; her request was 
granted, and from her own labor and the help of the 
$12 a crop of sweet potatoes was raised which netted 
$40. This amount just covered the required deposit 
necessary to enter the Industrial Institute and College, 



122 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

at Columbus, Mississippi. Here she paid her board 
for four years by doing dining-room work. In 189 1 she 
was graduated with the degree of B. A. 

The next year was passed in Meridian studying medi- 
cine under one of the leading physicians. In the fall of 
'92 she entered the Woman's Medical College of Penn- 
sylvania, paying her way through that institution by 
giving private lessons in physiology and chemistry to 
the students, for which she received $2 an hour, and, 
at odd times, working as a waitress in a restaurant. 
During the summers she stayed in Philadelphia nurs- 
ing, thus making her expenses and gaining much 
practical knowledge. In 1895 she was graduated from 
the Woman's Medical College, and returned at once to 
Meridian. Very soon she was requested by two mission 
boards to go to China and take charge of hospital work 
there, but she said she felt called to practice medicine 
in the South, in her own state and among her own peo- 
ple. Six months after her graduation as a physician, 
she took the state medical examination and was granted 
a license to practice — the first woman in Mississippi 
who has gained such a distinction. Her reception by 
the physicians of her state has been cordial and courte- 
ous. Dr. Rosa Wiss is now an honored and independent 
physician with a success assured by the precedent 
narrated. 

The mighty principles that are now being wrought 
out in the splendid lives of the women of this nation 
received their impetus several years before the Civil 
war. Jessie Cassidy in her compact little book called 
" The Legal Status of Women," published in 1897 for 



Evolution of Southern Women 123 

the National American Woman Suffrage Association, 
in the Pohtical Science series, gives a concise but com- 
prehensive history of the woman's movement in these 
words : ** The first organized demand by women for 
political recognition was made in the United States in 
1848, at the memorable Seneca Falls Convention. That 
suffrage should be included had not beforehand entered 
the minds of those who issued the call for the conven- 
tion, but it was suggested during the preparation of the 
Declaration of Independence and incorporated in the list 
of grievances submitted by the committee. It came like 
a bombshell upon the unprepared convention, and after 
a long discussion was passed by only a bare majority. 
Lucretia Mott was one of those who at that time could 
not see her way to support it. The organization of dif- 
ferent State Suffrage Associations followed, continuing 
the agitation. In 1869 Wyoming granted full political 
equality to women. 

" Different degrees of school suffrage are now 
granted in twenty-two states and territories, partial suf- 
frage for public improvements in three, municipal suf- 
frage in one, and in Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and 
Idaho women vote for all officers, local, state and 
national, exactly as do men." 

The following is a list of states and territories that 
have given the franchise in some form to women : Ari- 
zona and Oklahoma territories ; Colorado, Connecticut, 
Delaware, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, 
Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mis- 
sissippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New 
Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, South 



124 ^ Slaveholder's Daughter 

Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, 
Wyoming. 

In 1869, John Stuart Mill introduced the question of 
woman suffrage in Parliament. This was the first 
movement that was made for it in England. Since then 
women have been granted local franchise to a great ex- 
tent and now a strong demand is being made for Parlia- 
mentary Suffrage. The cause of equal rights is gain- 
ing constantly in many provinces and countries on the 
continent. In a number of them local and school fran- 
chise has been given to women. Full suffrage is enjoyed 
in the Isle of Man, New Zealand, and South and West 
Australia. The following is a register of foreign coun- 
tries that have given the ballot to women in some form : 
Australasia — Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania, New 
South Wales, New Zealand, South and West Australia ; 
Canada-;— Ontario, Nova Scotia, Manitoba, New Bruns- 
wick, British Columbia ; Cape of Good Hope, England, 
Guernsey, Ireland, Isle of Man, Scotland, Wales, Fin- 
land, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Prussia, Russia, Aus- 
tria, Brunswick, Croatia, Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein, 
Westphalia, Austria — Bohemia, Galicia, Lodomeria, 
Cracow, Moravia; Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg, Rou- 
mania. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE TRANSFORMATION 

Why thus longing, thus forever sighing 
For the far-off, unattainable and dim, — 

While the beautiful, all around thee lying 
Offers up its low, perpetual hymn? 

—Harriet Winslow. 

My last private school in Flora was continued only 
a few months. At the beginning of the New Year, 
1887, my pupils were turned over to the public school 
and I sought a much needed rest in a visit to some rela- 
tives in St, Louis, Missouri, where six weeks were 
spent. There was the usual round of society gaieties 
but the extent of my participation was entertaining 
numerous visitors, attending receptions and the theatre. 

This breath from the old life found me as miserable 
as five years before, full of the same restless and un- 
happy questioning, and more disgusted than ever with 
the emptiness of an existence without a definite aim. 
I was yearning continually for an intangible Something, 
but believing in nothing. 

On my return from St. Louis a lengthy visit was 
made to Canton. My mathematical studies under Mrs. 
Drane were resumed and examination taken, for the 
second time, under the new school law, in both of which 
first-grade certificates were obtained. My plans were 

125 



126 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

unsettled but wisdom pointed to a state of readiness for 
any emergency. Soon after going home a letter was 
received from Mrs. Drane inviting me to join her in 
the flourishing school she had established at Canton : 
" Not as my assistant," she wrote, '' but as my partner ; 
sharing equally my labor and my income." A short 
time previous father's health had begun to fail. This 
made it imperative for me to remain near him, so the 
tempting oifer had to be declined. 

In the fall, my fifth public school year was begun near 
home in a new school-house that had replaced the old 
hut — the scene of my former struggles. It was not 
necessary for me to go from house to house begging 
for pupils as in earlier days, but the same visitations 
were made because a great yearning over humanity had 
crept into my heart, and the desire of my life was to do 
something for its solace and its uplift. My eyes had 
slowly opened to many truths ; among the chief was a 
recognition of my intensely selfish, inordinately proud 
and uselessly embittered spirit. I saw that there was 
poverty in the world infinitely more stringent and pain- 
ful than mine ; that there was suffering cruel and ex- 
quisite, to which my sorrows were as drops of rain to 
the fathomless ocean; that there was hunger for light 
and sympathy, the intensity and need of which I was 
but beginning to comprehend ; that there was ignorance 
pitiful and paralyzing in the very air about me; that 
there was degradation within reach of my finger-tips 
terrible and communicable. 

With the dawning of these realities there came the 
conviction that one and all ought to be remedied, and 



The Transformation 127 

that I should be an instrument in a new dispensation. 
Accompanying this consciousness was the knowledge 
that my own shortcomings would have to be conquered 
before it would be possible for me to help others. Then 
began a closer self-analysis; my most prominent fail- 
ings were singly the subjects of excision. I forced my- 
self to think of others' wishes as superior to my own ; 
my pride was humbled by every crucifying device 
that suggested itself. An effort was made to tear out all 
roots of bitterness and to cultivate every tender senti- 
ment. Clothes were bought for the needy and journeys 
were made around the country for the purpose of solicit- 
ing food for the destitute. The sick were visited and 
the lives of those who sat in the shadow brightened. 
Books and periodicals were sent to persons who could 
not afford such luxuries and an earnest endeavor was 
instituted to soften their hard lots by sympathy with 
their leaden atmosphere and sunless prospects. Sins 
that v/ere intolerably repugnant were overlooked and 
outcasts, in the darkness of shame, were sought out. 

The wider the windows of my soul were opened the 
more distinctly was my true self revealed — odious in 
conceit, selfishness and prejudice. The greater my hu- 
miliation the stronger was my yearning for an infinite, 
inexplicable, divinely satisfying Something. At this 
stage of my spiritual awakening Robert Elsmere was 
read, Mrs. Humphrey Ward's famous book, which is 
said to have destroyed the faith of many. I was 
profoundly impressed with the difference in the life of 
Elsmere, before and after his renunciation of Chris- 
tianity; so radiant and useful when in the fullness of 



128 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

belief, so gloomy and forceless when the light died 
out. 

My brain began to wonder if such could have been 
the real experience of a human soul ; if so, there surely 
must be a marvelous power in the possession of faith 
in Jesus Christ. Then came the remembrance of all the 
striking characters whose acquaintance had been made 
through books or personal contact, and they were care- 
fully weighed in the scales of spiritual beliefs. It was 
found that the happiest and most useful professed a 
changeless faith in God, and the most objectless and 
miserable rejected Him. A desire grew to know that 
wonderful essence called religion which could effect 
such transformations and sustain such power in the 
human heart. " What is God ? " was asked again, not 
impatiently this time, not imperatively, but with an un- 
dying hunger that all the years had not quieted. " O, 
my soul, what is God ? " 

In the solitude of my room the Bible was opened. It 
had been closed ever since the hour the knowledge came 
that my school-days were over, — soon after my fifteenth 
birthday. I began at *' In the beginning " and read on 
through the Old Testament, finding nothing satisfying, 
but numerous inconsistencies, unaccountable incidents 
and mystifying statements. I laid the book down with 
deep disappointment. A feeling swept over me of utter 
repugnance. Acceptance of the story of creation was 
impossible; the history of Adam and Eve was consid- 
ered an allegory. It appeared unbelievable that a man 
as cold-blooded as Abraham in driving Hagar from 
his home should be the '' friend of God." Jacob, to my 



The Transformation 129 

mind, was a shameless deceiver and a thief, and could 
never have been chosen as the father of his people 
by God. Moses was a murderer and could not have 
been divinely selected to lead the Hebrews out of Egypt 
and to " talk face to face " with God. There was no 
poetry in the Psalms because David wrote them, and 
the sins he had committed were so hideous as to shut 
him out forever from any suggestion of greatness or 
connection with the mercy of God. So it was on down 
to the last verse in the last chapter of Malachi. 

A second darkness fell upon me. Heart-sick, my 
daily duties were faithfully done, but my difficulties and 
sufferings were not mentioned to a living being. The 
crisis was too sacred for the human touch. There are 
vast stretches of soul-land in the possession of every 
unconverted life where none but God have a right to 
tread. Silent and alone the fierce battle was fought to 
bring my mind into an attitude of acceptance of " the 
plan of salvation." There were no promptings of fear 
in my struggles for a thought of hell did not appeal to 
me. The pitiless restlessness swayed constantly in my 
soul. My intellect rebelled, my heart was as stone. The 
truth was no nearer my grasp than at first and my con- 
dition was as wretched and comfortless as when, with- 
out rudder or compass, my faith drifted out from me 
on the ocean of night, ten years before. Work in school 
and everywhere else was undertaken with more ve- 
hemence than ever, but my despair only deepened as 
the craving grew for a great Completeness. After 
many dreary weeks, the Bible was again gpened and the 
reading continued where I had left off,— the first chap- 



130 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

ter of Matthew, — " The Book of the generation of Jesus 
Christ." What a strange, sweet thrill went through 
me! what did it mean? ''Of Jesus Christ." Rapidly 
the pages were turned with eyes and heart aflame. 
** The old, old story " of the only perfect Man ; lowly, 
yet kingly; gentle, but strong; tender and faithful — 
" the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever ; " fear- 
less in the denunciation of wrong, undismayed in the 
defence of righteousness, unconquerable in integrity, 
sublime in innocency, infinite in power and holiness; 
the perfection of humanity ; the fulness of divinity ! 

As the reading went on God was revealed to me — 
translated in the life of Jesus Christ. What difference 
did it make now about Adam and Eve, Abraham, Jacob, 
Moses and David ! / had found Jesus Christ. In the 
glory of that possession all unbelief vanished. With a 
triumphant, " My Lord and my God ! " my soul passed 
into the liberty wherein He maketh free. O, wonderful 
revelation! O, divine consolation! O, perfect filling! 
My heart was " satisfied " for the awakening " in His 
likeness " had come. The hunger was gone. The un- 
rest was stilled. The questi(5ning answered. Peace, 
joyous and ineffable, that the world can neither give 
nor take away, swept through my being. 

" And I smiled to think God's sweetness 
Flowed around " my " incompleteness 
Round " my '* restlessness His rest." 



CHAPTER XIII 

MISS FRANCES E. WILLARD 

What power there is in an enthusiastic adherence to an ideal ! 
What are hardships, contumely, slander, ridicule, persecution, 
toil, sickness, the feebleness of age, to a soul throbbing with an 
overmastering purpose ? — Marsden. 

For many years the conviction had more and more 
firmly settled upon my soul that a special mission in life 
would be my destiny. My highest ambition had been to 
be a writer. At an early age several short stories were 
written and, later, articles on education and kindred 
subjects were contributed to different newspapers. A 
talent for authorship did not develop satisfactorily, so 
nothing more pretentious in a literary line was at- 
tempted. 

After my conversion the impression of being born for 
a specific work deepened into a certainty. With this 
consciousness came a definite act of consecration. All 
that was mine — brains, hands, feet, life itself — was 
given into the keeping of Christ to be used for His serv- 
ice. With this surrender there came from the fulness of 
a glad heart the cry : " * Here am I. Lord, send me/ — 
anywhere — to the foreign mission field — to the slums of 
the great cities — to the self-renouncing vocation of a 
deaconess or to the isolated calling of a temperance 
worker — anywhere, O God ! " 



132 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

My school closed in April. A few days later father 
said to me : '* It is announced in the papers that Miss 
Frances E. Willard, President of the National Woman's 
Christian Temperance Union, is to lecture in Jackson 
next week. I wish, daughter, that you would go to hear 
her. She is a woman of international reputation and is 
considered the greatest orator and foremost reformer of 
the day. You should make it a point to come into con- 
tact with such a beautiful character." " Oh ! father," 
was my reply, " the w^eariness is so great after these 
months of teaching that not enough vitality is left to 
pack a valise ! " The next day a letter was received 
from Bessie Fearn, in which she wrote, '* Miss Willard, 
the famous temperance lecturer, will soon be in Jack- 
son to deliver an address. Do come down to hear her 
and remain to visit me." " What a strange coinci- 
dence ! " was my comment, but still I did not think of 
going. The third day after, a letter arrived from a rel- 
ative in New Orleans, saying, " I shall be in Jackson 
next week and am anxious to meet you there. Please 
do not fail to come." ** This is a very unusual con- 
junction of circumstances," I remarked to father. " Per- 
haps, after all, it would be better for me to change my 
mind and go." 

The words, " Woman's Christian Temperance 
Union," had never fallen upon my ears until the week 
before Miss Willard came to Jackson, in 1889. Tem- 
perance lectures had been listened to from Francis 
Murphy and Luther Benson, and the Independent Or- 
der of Good Templars had been heard of, but I had 
never known of the existence of a temperance society 



Miss Frances E. Willard 133 

composed entirely of women. Father and mother had 
reared me with the strictest ideas concerning total ab- 
stinence; they held most decided views on the subject. 
Mother had banished wine from her table before my 
birth, and had not allowed even an egg-nog at Christ- 
mas. The decanters and wine glasses were put high up 
and far away in the cavernous depths of the china-closet 
and the spiders had long used them to assist their con- 
structive enterprises. The children had been taught 
that intemperance was more than a beastly vice and 
drinking, in any degree, a disgrace. When a little girl, 
attending a picnic, some gentleman offered me a glass 
of wine and a bottle from which to refill. This incensed 
me so thoroughly that glass and bottle were tossed into 
the muddy creek on whose banks we stood and I walked 
contemptuously away. 

Uncle Kinch was more convivial In his tastes than 
father, and at his home wines and cordials were freely 
dispensed. By degrees my Nazarite teachings lost their 
force, the customs of the society about me were adopted 
and every sort of refreshment partaken of that was 
served, — wined ice-tea being a specialty. It often hap- 
pened during visits to intimate friends that claret was 
" handed around " at intervals to the young people ; at 
other times, while spending the day with a young lady 
acquaintance that the mother sent in a bottle of wine to 
be used at will as we played cards. I was accustomed 
in towns to see champagne flow at dinings, and I did not 
refuse it. Once a wine-party was given " to young 
ladies only " at which I was present. Our hostess had 
tasted the contents of different bottles before our ar- 



134 ^ Slaveholder's Daughter 

rival. She soon become so visibly " under the influ- 
ence " that she had to be taken to her room. Of course, 
after that, she was " cut dead " by the " set." It is only 
the sin that ** finds you out " with which society reckons 
seriously. At balls and parties I usually took cham- 
pagne with the rest, but always in my heart there was 
a sharp protest. 

When the decision was reached that life held some- 
thing better for me than a giddy round of butterfly flit- 
tings, wine drinking was renounced with the other so- 
called pleasures that go to make up " society." My 
young men friends began to be talked to earnestly about 
the dangers of drink and success was completely at- 
tained in making myself widely unpopular with the 
fashionable ring. When the serious business of life 
commenced there came a recognition of the dreadful 
havoc drunkenness had made in the homes about me, 
and the conclusion was reached that total abstinence, 
and nothing short of it, was the only safe position for 
any man or woman to occupy. The pledge was signed 
but the temperance question did not take hold of me 
with such absorption as to lead me to read on the sub- 
ject; in fact articles bearing upon it had always been 
skipped as very tiresome. Up to the moment of hearing 
Miss Willard my interest in the temperance movement 
was not greater than in any other religious or philan- 
thropic enterprise. I was simply waiting on God, keep- 
ing my heart ready to obey any command and my eyes 
open to catch the faintest gleam of " Kindly Light " 
that should show the unmistakable way. 

There was an immense audience present to greet Miss 



Miss Frances E. Willard 135 

Willard. It was afterward told me that she had visited 
Jackson seven times before but had never been able to 
secure a satisfactory hearing, except when she spoke, in 
1882, before the legislature, — nobody else, however, be- 
ing interested enough to attend. Mrs. Harriet B. Kells, 
one of the brainiest, most cultured and advanced women 
of the South, who had made her record as an educator, 
and afterward became distinguished as a journalist and 
leader of thought in the National Woman's Christian 
Temperance Union, — had determined that Jackson 
should hear Miss Willard this time, and, by the use of 
wise methods, including elaborate advertising, had been 
a potent cause of the assembling of the vast crowd that 
sat and stood, anxiously awaiting the great speaker. 
Many were turned from the door unable to gain en- 
trance. The State Medical Association, which was in 
session in Jackson, adjourned in honor of the occasion. 
Seats very near the front were secured by my friends 
and myself so that not a word of the orator should be 
lost and not an expression of her countenance be missed, 
in order that we might judge what manner of woman 
she was. She came quietly into the pulpit, modestly at- 
tired. The small bonnet which was worn she removed 
before arising to speak. One glimpse of that face al- 
most divine, one echo of that matchless voice, one 
charmed moment under the witchery of that superb in- 
tellect were enough to form an epoch in a life, to create 
a memory unmated forever. Miss Willard that night 
was the peerless orator, the gracious Christian, the mar- 
velous reformer who shall stand forth in history " un- 
til there shall be no more curse " and " the kingdoms 



136 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and 
of His Christ." While she was speaking a vision arose 
before me of the glad day when not one woman only, 
but women of all lands shall have entered into the 
human heritage — as man's equal in society, church and 
state. 

Mrs. Kells came to me at the close of the address 
and said : " You must be introduced to Miss Willard. 
I think she will like you," and drawing me forward to 
the altar where the speaker stood, presented me. A 
cordial greeting, an earnest hand-clasp, — then we 
passed on with the throng. It is a little remarkable that 
I had met Mrs. Kells but once before, and during our 
brief acquaintance there had been only a very short con- 
versation. 

The day following Miss Willard's lecture, in com- 
pany with Bessie Fearn, a call was made upon a mutual 
friend. Miss Sue Tarpley, who was visiting in Jackson. 
When I was sixteen years of age this delightful woman 
came to live at her plantation which was within six 
miles of my home. We soon became constant compan- 
ions and for eleven years she was my closest friend, ex- 
erting a blessed influence on my life. She came just 
when she was most needed in my mental and spiritual 
struggles. Although of the world and worldly-wise she 
had kept herself '' unspotted from the world ; " was in- 
tellectual, exquisitely refined and of the loftiest religious 
nature. To use her own words in describing a friend, 
" She was like a breath of autumn flowers, the under- 
tone in music and all things else that are sweet and un- 



Miss Frances E. Willard. 137 

forgetable." Although my senior by several years, she 
took me into her " holy of holies " and we found our- 
selves to be peculiarly congenial. 

While we talked together in Jackson this friend said 
suddenly, " I somehow feel that you must see Miss 
Willard and have a conversation with her. These pro- 
gressive women are total strangers to the traditions of 
my life, for I am hopelessly of the old regime, but you 
are thoroughly interested in them. Please don't waste 
another moment on me, but go at once." We arose to 
do her bidding. When we reached the street Bessie 
said suddenly, " It will be useless to try to see Miss Wil- 
lard at this hour; she is at dinner, and wouldn't have 
time afterward to receive a call, for she speaks this 
afternoon at three o'clock, and it is now 2 130. Let us 
go around to the church and wait until she comes. You 
may possibly have a chance to talk with her before the 
meeting opens." 

While waiting for Miss Willard, Dr. W. C. Black sat 
near me. He was pastor of the First Methodist Church 
in Jackson and an old friend of my family, having once 
filled the pulpit at Vernon. He had since risen to dis- 
tinction in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and 
had added to his reputation as a most invincible antag- 
onist of the liquor traffic, and by the publication of his 
recent book, " Christian Womanhood," which fixed his 
place as a scholarly, broad-minded thinker. In course of 
conversation he was told of my late acceptance of 
Christ, of my entire consecration, and of my willing- 
ness to be sent to the missionary field, to enter the order 



138 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

of deaconesses or to go into the temperance work. 
These three forms of service had clung persistently in 
my thought ever since my conversion. 

Miss Willard came and went without my having an 
opportunity for one word with her. There were a num- 
ber of prominent Mississippi women present, en route 
to Crystal Springs, to attend the annual convention of 
the State Woman's Christian Temperance Union. Miss 
Willard left immediately after the service in company 
with them. I supposed we should never meet again. 
My disappointment was keen. 



CHAPTER Xiy 

THE NEW CAREER 

To each man's life there comes a time supreme; 
One day, one night, one morning, or one noon, 
One freighted hour, one moment opportune, 
One rift through which divine fulfillments gleam. 
One space when fate goes tiding with the stream. 

— Mary A. Townsend, 

While at the breakfast table two days after Miss 
Willard's visit to Jackson the servant announced that 
Dr. Black wished to see me in the parlor. On entering 
the room he greeted me with the following statement : 
" I went to Crystal Springs, the day after we had our 
conversation in the church, to look in upon the State 
Convention. While there I told several of the leaders 
what you had said in reference to entire consecration 
and willingness to enter the temperance work. Mrs. 
Mary E. Ervin, who was formerly president of the Mis- 
sissippi Woman's Christian Temperance Union, clapped 
her hands and said : " Praise the Lord ! For four years 
I have been praying for a young woman to be raised up 
in Mississippi to lead the young women's department of 
the work. I have been commissioned," continued Dr. 
Black, " by the foremost women of the convention to 
tell you that your expenses will be paid to Crystal 
Springs and that you will be entertained there if you 

139 



140 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

will go down to the convention. They wish you to come 
at once. You have one hour in which to decide and to 
catch the train. Will you go? " 

When he had finished speaking there swept through 
my mind, like a lightning flash, as is said to occur to 
the drowning, the memory of my past life. Scene after 
scene in vivid panorama glided by. Then the thought 
presented itself of what the result might be if this 
strange call should be accepted. It would lead me out 
of the trend of my old existence. Doubtless it would 
mean renunciation of home life, the estrangement of 
friends, the criticism of an unsympathetic world; but 
through all my retrospections and forecasts there was 
sounding a voice more than human, with an imperative, 
unmistakable ring : " Go ! You must not fail to go ! " 
The hour of my destiny had come. " My soul was not 
disobedient unto the heavenly vision." The answer was 
given calmly and instantly : " Dr. Black, in one hour 
I shall be on the train." 

Hurriedly my dress was changed, the street car 
reached, my ticket bought and I was seated in an ex- 
press that faced south. From the window a good-bye 
was waved to Bessie. As the engine pulled out she 
called : *' Now, remember. Belle, you must return 
this afternoon for we have an engagement to tea at a 
charming home ! " " O, that shall not be forgotten," 
was sent back in reply. " Meet me at the depot at four 
o'clock." At the end of an hour or two, accompanied by 
a minister, who came down in the car with me, I went 
to the hall where the convention was in session at Crys- 
tal Springs. 



The New Career 141 

What a novel spectacle it was to me ! The delegates 
were massed together in perfect order, each looking so 
serious and intent ; the stage was filled with women and 
decorated with flowers, while the walls were bright with 
banners. There were stirring debates and tactful en- 
gineering of parliamentary points. A beautiful Chris- 
tian spirit, holy enthusiasm and sublime devotion for 
a great cause seemed to animate all. 

A seat was taken on entering in the rear of the room, 
but in a few minutes Mrs. Kells saw me and sent a 
page to conduct me to the platform. There were Miss 
Willard and Miss Anna Gordon, the noble young 
woman who had accompanied the former in all her 
labors and travels and who superintended the juvenile 
temperance work of the nation ; Mrs. Mary McGehee 
Snell, now Mrs. Hall, who afterward became the most 
celebrated woman evangelist in the South ; Mrs. Lavinia 
S. Mount, the devoted state president of the Missis- 
sippi Union, and other distinguished women. 

After the adjournment of the morning session Mrs. 
Kells said to me : " Now, my dear, if you wish to learn 
something about the Woman's Christian Temperance 
Union you must not think of leaving here before the 
convention closes." 

" O, but I have an engagement for tea this evening 
in Jackson ! " was my protest. 

" This occasion is decidedly more important than a 
tea," she answered. " Send a telegram at once saying 
you will not return." 

The message was sent and on the days and nights 
following I attended every session of the convention, 



142 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

and was profoundly interested in them. Miss Gordon's 
address was the first I had heard given to children. It 
made a lasting impression as a model in its line. Before 
that experience practical illustration in public speaking 
was an unknown art to me. 

During a meeting, Mrs. Kells whispered in my ear, 
" It would not be surprising if you were appointed state 
superintendent and organizer of the L. T. L. and Y. W. 
C. T. U." The intimation dazed me. Those letters 
which slipped so glibly from her tongue were as cabal- 
istic to me as the incantations of an Indian juggler. " Do 
please explain all that," was my puzzled appeal. 
'* Why," she exclaimed, looking at me with astonish- 
ment, " L. T. L. stands for Loyal Temperance Legion, 
which is a juvenile society, and Y. W. C. T. U. for 
Young Woman's Christian Temperance Union. It will 
all come to you in the most natural manner. You must 
be introduced to the convention." 

" Oh ! don't do that ! " was my imploring answer. 
" Being introduced to this body of women would be a 
new and a terrible ordeal for me. I should not know 
whether to stand up or to sit down, to laugh or to cry." 

'' O, well," she assured me, " if you dread it like that 
it shall not be done." 

She forgot her promise. On the last afternoon of 
the convention, without giving me a hint of her purpose, 
she walked to the edge of the rostrum and announced 
my appointment by the executive committee as state 
superintendent and organizer of those strange orders 
with the mystical capitals. *' V/ill Miss Kearney come 
to the platform ? " she continued. There was nothing 



The New Career 143 

for me to do but to go. She took my hand, and intro- 
duced me to the delegates, who arose and gave the 
Chautauqua salute. In a low tone she said : " You must 
say something now." 

" Impossible ! " was my reply. " I haven't opened my 
lips before an audience since reading my Commence- 
ment essay, eleven years ago.'* 

" Oh ! but you must," she insisted ; " this is a good 
time to begin." Turning complacently to the assembly 
she added : " I'm telling Miss Kearney that she might 
as well make her first speech here as elsewhere." 

With a supreme effort I said: ''Dear friends: I 
haven't a conception of what it means to be a state su- 
perintendent and organizer of the L. T. L. and Y. W. 
C. T. U. The existence of your organization was un- 
known to me three weeks ago. My ignorance concern- 
ing your methods is absolute ; but something in my soul 
tells me that I must undertake this work. In accepting 
the position with which you honor me my promise is 
given to consecrate the best powers of my young 
womanhood to the cause to which this day my allegiance 
is declared." 

Just as my little speech was finished Miss Willard 
stepped forward and putting her arm about me said 
some complimentary words of cheer. In a few minutes 
the convention adjourned and the women, old and 
young, crowded around, welcoming me to their sister- 
hood and extending hearty invitations to visit their lo- 
calities, to speak and to organize. It was impossible to 
answer them. My voice was choked, my eyes were 
clouded with the mist of unshed tears. How strange 



144 ^ Slaveholder's Daughter 

it all seemed! What was to be the outcome? Not a 
soul explained my duties, not a suggestion was given. 
No one had talked with me about the Woman's Chris- 
tian Temperance Union within the two weeks since I 
had learned of there being such an organization. I 
knew nothing of its history nor how to procure liter- 
ature to enlighten me. In the rush of those few days 
at Crystal Springs no one had found time to answer 
questions. One morning I had sought an interview 
with Miss Willard at the home of her hostess. She 
walked up and down the parlor with hand clasped in 
mine talking lovingly and hopefully of my future, but 
it did not occur to me to ask her about books and papers 
bearing on the temperance question. As Anna Gordon 
had passed through the room she handed me a little 
package of leaflets. 

On returning to Jackson from the convention, my 
next step was to go to Canton with the purpose of 
standing another examination in order to resume my 
school in the fall. I had given myself to the W. C. T. 
U. work, it is true, but it all seemed very vague; 
especially how I was to be fed and clothed, for the of- 
ficers had told me there would be no fixed salary; I 
learned later that expenses and remuneration would 
depend on collections at my places of appointment. So 
the practical thing, it seemed to me, was to teach and 
supervise the work of the two departments now under 
my charge, not dreaming of going out into public life 
and making speeches. It presented itself as an absurd- 
ity that I should organize others into a temperance 
society in which my own name was yet to be enrolled. 



The New Career 145 

However, my time-worn plan of keeping myself in a 
state of preparedness was available in this crisis. 

I shut myself in my room and studied those leaflets 
that Miss Gordon had given me with the earnestness 
and devotion that final examination for university hon- 
ors would demand. 

On my knees, day and night, I cried out for guidance 
from Almighty God. No help could be obtained from 
my aunt and uncle, for their ignorance of the subject 
was as dense as my own. When their counsel was 
sought with reference to my going into the work, they 
both said : " Do it, honey, if you want to ; it is a new 
departure to us ; we can't say what is best." 

In loneliness of spirit and yearning inexpressibly for 
some word of advice and sympathy, a visit was made 
to the Methodist pastor, the man under whose ministry 
my entrance into the church had been effected, when a 
little girl, and from whose hands had been taken my 
first communion; he it was also who had accompanied 
me from the train to the hall during the recent conven- 
tion at Crystal Springs. In a very hurried manner he 
entered the sitting-room of the parsonage and, as hur- 
riedly greeting me, announced that it was very near the 
hour for his prayer-meeting. While we talked he 
turned over the leaves of a hymn book searching for 
the needs of his coming service. " Pardon me," was 
my first hesitating venture, " but can you tell me any- 
thing about the Woman's Christian Temperance 
Union?" 

" No, ma'am, I cannot ; " still turning over the leaves. 

" Well," swallowing to keep down a sob, " can you 



146 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

tell me anything about the Washingtonian movement 
and the earlier efforts of temperance reformers ? " 

" Not a thing," bending his head lower to discern the 
numbers of his hymns. " Can you give me an account 
of Father Matthew's work in Ireland, or tell me if there 
is a Catholic temperance society in America?" 

" I can give you nothing at all on those subjects," was 
the reply, leaning back in his chair and covering his 
mouth with the book to suppress a yawn. 

** You, perhaps, know," was my last despairing effort, 
" of my appointment as state superintendent and or- 
ganizer of the Loyal Temperance Legion and of the 
Young Woman's Christian Temperance Union at the 
convention just adjourned at Crystal Springs? What 
do you think of my entering the work ? " 

" You can do as you please, Miss Belle," he answered, 
rising. " Of course, you may be sure that you will meet 
with nothing but snubs. I should certainly hate to see 
my wife or daughter undertake such a life." He ex- 
cused himself and went to his prayer-meeting — which 
was composed, as usual, of about ten women and two 
men — leaving me alone to work out my own salvation, 
or not, as might be. 

My next thought was to go to my old friend, Mrs. 
Drane, who was a staunch Presbyterian, by the way, 
and unburden my soul to her. In her gentle, kindly 
fashion, she said : " I know nothing of the Woman's 
Christian Temperance Union, but from what you tell 
me about it and of your own convictions, I feel it is the 
call of God to you and that it would be spiritual suicide 
for you to disregard it. My ?,dvice is to go. through 



The New Career 147 

no more examinations, think no more of teaching but 
give yourself wholly to this work for humanity." 

As soon as my commission had been received I wrote 
to father and mother for their opinions. Mother an- 
swered : " My darling, I have always taught you to enter 
every open door if it led to wider service for the Lord 
Jesus. If you are persuaded that God wants you in this 
temperance work don't fail to enter upon it ; and I will 
give you up if it breaks my heart. Flowers are kept 
in your room while you are away as before a shrine, and 
I long continually for a glimpse of your face ; but my 
suffering and loneliness now are as * nothing compared 
to the glory that shall be revealed in us ' through entire 
submission to the will of Him ' who loved us and gave 
Himself for us.' " Father wrote : " In a supreme mo- 
ment, such as that which has come to you, no human 
being beside yourself can settle the question of destiny. 
It rests with you and your God. You are standing ' on 
holy ground.' I would not profane it by even a sug- 
gestion as to your duty. You are my only daughter, 
and I love you as I love my life ; but if you feel divinely 
called to go from home to ' sow beside all waters,' I 
say go most gladly, and may the richest blessing of our 
heavenly Father attend you." 

My brothers wrote later that they could not appre- 
ciate the motive which actuated me to relinquish a sub- 
stantial salary as a teacher and go into a strange work 
without a dollar in view ; but if my conscience prompted 
that it was my duty, they would offer no opposition but 
follow me in my travels with loyal hearts. All my fears 
vanished after receiving those letters from my dear 



148 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

ones, so full of faith and approbation. A renewed con- 
secration of myself to God was made at once, promising 
to go wherever He directed and do whatever work He 
gave me and ask no questions about bread, but suffer 
want and persecution if need be to promote the blessed 
cause that claimed my fealty. Every association was 
rejected that hampered and every tie severed that bound 
me to the old existence. In the strength and majesty 
of a sublime purpose, I arose and shook myself free ! 

The call of God had come. Through that assurance 
a deep peace abided with me, a joyous rest in Him. 
There has been ever since a new song in my heart, a 
new light in my soul, a new inspiration in my life, a 
definite, sacred purpose that has never died out. My 
mission was found. No more advice was asked for, no 
more sympathy sought. / closed the door to all the 
world but God, — and wrote my speeches. 



CHAPTER XV 

MY FIRST SPEECH 

Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp. 

Or what's a heaven for? 

— RoBT. Browning. 

Among the leaflets in Anna Gordon's package was 
one of Miss Willard's annual addresses and sorne of 
Mrs. Mary H. Hunt's publications on scientific tem- 
perance instruction. From these it was easy to gain a 
comprehensive idea of the scope and purpose of the 
woman's war against the liquor traffic and definite plans 
for the children's organization. On a tract designed for 
the Y. W. C. T. U., the name and address of Miss Mary 
McDowell, one of the national organizers of the Young 
Woman's work, were found. I communicated imme- 
diately with her explaining my ignorant but inquiring 
state and asking for some literature bearing directly on 
her subject. She promptly forwarded several leaflets. 
From this store of valuables sufficient information was 
culled to enable me to prepare two speeches, — one for 
young women, the other for children. 

I had never taken an elocution lesson and knew noth- 
ing of voice culture. My unprospected field was en- 
tered literally without training. The state president 

149 



150 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

urged me to go at once into the work of lecturing and 
organizing. She sent me the address of a young woman 
who was anxious to have a union formed among the 
girls at a little place near Port Gibson. While definite 
arrangements were being made for this trip, a visit was 
paid to my home for a greeting and good-bye to mother 
and father and the boys. Before leaving, a meeting 
was planned for the children and my first public ad- 
dress was given in the Baptist church at Flora. Notes 
were placed on a table conveniently near, but they had 
to be glanced at only once or twice. I talked without 
embarrassment. Several nights after, a meeting was 
held in the Methodist church for the people at large. 
No address was attempted but the manuscript of my 
speech for young women was read, and a Y. W. C. T. 
U. was formed. There were only four girls present, 
but every one joined. The smallness of the union 
caused many to smile. Noticing the amusement rip- 
pling over the audience, I said : " This is a weak begin- 
ning but I prophesy that within three years there will 
not be a saloon in this town." At the end of three years 
there was not a legalized dramshop in the entire district 
and public sentiment had been revolutionized respecting 
the liquor traffic. 

A letter finally came from Miss Russell, the young 
woman near Port Gibson, saying that arrangements had 
been perfected and that she would meet me at the near- 
est railway station. One bright, hot day in June, about 
six weeks after receiving my commission from the 
Crystal Springs convention, I stepped off the train, with 
umbrella and traveling satchel, to fill my first appoint- 



My First Speech 151 

ment, as a W. C. T. U. organizer. There was no one 
to greet me. On taking my bearings, the village was 
found to consist of several small stores and a few resi- 
dences scattered far apart. Nobody was at the depot 
from whom information could be gleaned, it being 
quickly deserted after the train had passed; so, one of 
the stores was invaded and a clerk asked if he could 
tell me where to find a boarding place. " Over the hill," 
he answered, jerking his thumb eastward. Summon- 
ing my reserve forces, the climb up the dusty road was 
begun. 

*' Over the hill," sure enough, there was a boarding 
house, clean and white, close by the highway. On 
knocking at the entrance, a tall, stout woman peered 
from behind the door at the end of the front hall. '' Good 
morning ! " I said cheerfully, her silence forcing me to 
take the initiative. " Will you allow me to spend to-day 
and to-morrow here ? " It was Saturday ; and I did not 
travel on Sunday. 

" Well, yes, I reckon so ! " was the answer, but she 
did not ask me to come in, and continued to eye me 
cautiously. Still waiting, my interrogatives were plied 
in self-defence. "Is Miss Russell in town?" 

" No, indeed ! she lives several miles out in the coun- 
try and has not been here for weeks." 

My heart sank. " Do you know Miss Russell ? " 

" Yes, that I do ! " A broad smile broke over the land- 
lady's face. " She used to board here and teach school. 
Do you know Miss Russell ? " she asked in turn. 

" No ; but she has been inviting me to come here to 
speak on temperance and organize a union among the 



152 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

young women. She promised to meet me here to- 
day." 

*' Won't you sit down? " asked the landlady emerging 
from behind the door, and apologizing for her lame foot 
and disheveled appearance. " Miss Russell may come 
in yet. I haven't heard a word about the meeting. 
When did you expect to speak ? " 

" To-morrow night. Miss Russell was to arrange 
everything." 

" Well, nothing has been done that I know of. Folks 
are here from all over the county to-day to a big picnic 
in the grove back of the house. They ain't thinking 
about temperance. You can see them gathering now." 

Looking in the direction indicated there were seen 
some hundreds of persons coming into the woods and 
disporting themselves in true picnic fashion. An in- 
spiration seized me. " Since the journey has been taken 
here, I certainly do not intend going away without hold- 
ing a meeting," I declared. *' If a number of notices 
are written will you have them put up all over the picnic 
grounds ? " 

" Of course I will ! " the landlady rejoined. Forth- 
with, my satchel was opened and in a few moments the 
following arrestive words were scrav/led in a mam- 
moth hand : Great W. C. T, U. Meeting To-morrow 
Night ! A Mississippi Woman Will Speak ! Come ! 
Come ! Come ! 

My coadjutor remained true to her promise and the 
notices were posted. Miss Russell arrived early the 
next morning and satisfactorily explained her previous 
non-appearance. Arrangements had been made for me 



My First Speech 153 

to speak in the village church ; an announcement of the 
lecture was read from the pulpit at the eleven o'clock 
service. Sunday night the church was packed with peo- 
ple who had come from far and near to behold the nov- 
elty of a woman speaker. When the audience was 
viewed from my position at the altar my courage fell 
below zero. The blood seemed to freeze in my veins. 
The opening services seemed remarkably brief and the 
presiding minister was introducing me to the congre- 
gation. Not a word that he uttered was comprehended 
by my dazed faculties, but when he sat down the fact 
appeared that my hour had come. Holding to the com- 
munion table for support I said : " It will be impossible 
for me to speak to-night unless some young woman in 
the audience will first pray." Miss Russell had given me 
the names of several consecrated girls who had received 
fine spiritual training at the State Industrial Institute 
and College, so one of these was called on. Without 
hesitation the noble young woman responded. 

When the prayer closed my address was begun and 
carried to the end with ease. The manuscript which 
was spread out before me was referred to but once. 
The transport of enthusiasm, the inexplicable fervor, 
the exquisite joy, the utter abandon that often comes 
to public speakers in appealing to the intellect and stir- 
ring the emotions of an audience descended upon me. 
It was forgotten whether the listeners were opposers or 
sympathizers. Nothing was remembered but that my 
speaking was for deepening and broadening the outlook 
for young womanhood and the ultimate redemption of 
mankind from the curse of drink and the blight of social 



1^4 ^ Slaveholder's Daughter 

Impurity. It is worth the effort of a Ufe-time to ex- 
perience the divineness of such a touch. 

From the hour of my speech in that Httle town until 
this day, — which means the test of nearly eleven years 
on the platform — a mantiscript has not been referred to 
but once and notes have been used only two or three 
times. I concluded that decidedly the best course to be 
pursued was not to be hampered by the consciousness 
that succor was near but throw myself completely on 
my own resources and trust. At the close of this my 
first address to an adult audience my second Young 
Woman's Christian Temperance Union was formed. 

Several years after this experience, Miss Russell en- 
tered the work of the Woman's Christian Temperance 
Union as state lecturer and organizer and it was my 
pleasant privilege to arrange a meeting for her From a 
girlhood of heroic achievement she advanced to an en- 
viable position as one of the foremost teachers of Mis- 
sissippi, and from the school-room stepped easily upon 
the platform. 



CHAPTER XVI 

" AWAY DOWN SOUTH IN DIXIE " 

There is no road to success but through a clear, strong pur- 
pose. A purpose underlies character, culture, position, attain- 
ment of whatever sort. — T. T. Munger. 

When my public work began, acquaintance with the 
W. C. T. U. was so limited that it seemed impossible 
to speak those letters in the order in which they should 
come. I would nearly always say W. T. U. C. or W. T. 
C. U. until they were conned over and over again — W. 
C. T. U., W.— C— T.— U.— like a child studying its 
lesson. My all was given to the Woman's Christian 
Temperance Union and its service was entered with the 
avowed determination to succeed, cost what it might of 
personal energy and sacrifice. It was felt that I was 
called to push the work and not for the work to push me. 

When Mrs. Mount, the state president, failed to se- 
cure engagements for me in certain places, which some- 
times happened, if the towns were in need of an organ- 
ization my creative faculties were set to work to ac- 
complish our purpose regardless of the obstinacy of the 
hindrances. Every available orthodox means was used. 
A letter was first written to the minister whose name 
had been given as a sympathizer with the temperance 

iS5 



156 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

movement, explaining my mission and requesting that 
he secure me an audience, provide entertainment and al- 
low a collection to be taken at the meeting, to defray 
expenses. If a reply was received saying there was no 
opening another preacher was written to, and so on, un- 
til the ministerial circle in the town was completed. If 
all wrote that it was a hopeless undertaking, then letters 
were sent to leading Christian women whose names had 
been secured through the ministers. If these failed 
then men and women outside the churches were ap- 
pealed to ; the destined place was always reached in the 
end, and a union among the children or the young 
women was invariably formed. 

After being fairly started it was easy sailing for me 
in Mississippi. The loveliest homes in the state stood 
wide open with a warm welcome; the press was gen- 
erous In its expression, — even the papers most conserva- 
tive on the woman question and prohibition never once 
publishing an unkind criticism; and the blessed minis- 
ters, with a few isolated exceptions, gave me the hearti- 
est reception and most cordial co-operation. Without 
them very little could have been effected. They offered 
me the use of their churches and the hospitality of their 
parsonages ; they spent portions of their limited salaries 
to advertise the meetings, hireing conveyances to drive 
me long distances through the country to meet appoint- 
ments and accompanying me from place to place on the 
railroads to insure a successful attempt at organization. 
They failed In nothing that was true and brotherly and 
Christ-like. To them the deepest gratitude of my heart 
is rendered faithfully and reverently. It Is amusing 



Away Down South in Dixie 157 

to know some of the influences that operated to intro- 
duce my work. The third effort at making a speech 
was at the Methodist Camp-ground, on the Gulf of 
Mexico, near the little village of Biloxi. While there, 
a young girl about seventeen years of age, was intro- 
duced to me : she was very gay, very bright, and an 
ardent Episcopalian. It was learned that she lived in 
one of the adjacent towns, back from the coast, and that 
the place was full of young ladies. On being asked 
if she would arrange a meeting for me on her return 
home, she replied that it was quite impossible. In the 
afternoon of the same day she went with me to hear 
Bishop Keener preach. Returning from the service, she 
said suddenly : '' I believe, after all, an audience can be 
secured for you in my town. In an hour or two I shall 
leave and will write you in the course of a few days 
what the prospect is." Within a week I had received 
an invitation to come, had gone, had organized a very 
large Y. W. C. T. U., and had been royally entertained 
in the home of the young girl's parents, who were ele- 
gant people. Just before leaving my little hostess said, 
with a mischievous smile, " Did it ever occur to you 
that my mind was changed very quickly that day you 
asked me to secure you an audience here ? " On ac- 
knowledging that I had often wondered what was the 
cause, she explained as follows : " When you first spoke 
to me I was undecided whether the dress you wore was 
sateen or China silk. If it had been sateen you would 
not have been asked to this place ; but during the prayer 
after the Bishop's sermon I found it was China silk, and 
at once concluded to have you come." 



158 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

" It is not fine feathers that make fine birds," truly, 
but it has been discovered to my sorrow for humanity, 
that it is often fine clothes that gain a hearing for a 
speaker in an unpopular cause. 

Day by day valuable experience was being added 
to my limited store. In a few months a visit was paid 
to a little country place, near Natchez called Washing- 
ton, one of the historic landmarks of Mississippi, — once 
the territorial capital and the place where the first Con- 
stitutional Convention of the new state met, in 1817; 
the old Methodist church in which it was held is still 
standing. Here Aaron Burr was taken, in 1807, after 
his capture, en route on his supposed treasonable ex- 
pedition to Mexico, and here he gave bond to appear 
before the Supreme Court of the Mississippi Territory. 
Jefferson College, for the education of boys, was located 
there in 1802. This venerable institution now opened 
Vv^ide its hospitable doors to receive me. 

The minister who had invited me said : " Your meet- 
ing is to be in the afternoon. No one will be present 
except some old settlers. It will be best to talk to them 
on Prohibition." At that time, my knowledge of the 
methods employed in the abolition of the liquor traffic 
went no farther than the principles involved in simple 
total abstinence; but some points gotten up in my jour- 
neyings on the legal side of the question were put to- 
gether, and we went to the church expecting to find 
about two dozen elderly ladies and gentlemen congre- 
gated; but not a soul was present, and as soon as we 
arrived it had begun to rain. Just as the thought pre- 
sented itself of suggesting to the minister and the two 



Away Down South in Dixie 159 

friends who had accompanied us that we return, lo ! the 
doors opened and in marched about fifty students, 
dressed in uniforms, ranging in age apparently from 
fifteen to twenty-five, and calmly took their seats with 
exact military precision. 

Terror seized me. There were only two set speeches 
in my repertoire : one was for girls and the other for 
children ; the facts that had been prepared for the " old 
settlers " would answer no better. What 7vas to be 
done? As soon as the students appeared the minister 
sat down at the organ, without saying '' By your leave,'* 
and proceeded to sing ; then he prayed and immediately 
after introduced me. It would have been far easier to 
have faced a fire of musketry in the heat of battle than 
the calm gaze of those placid young men. There they 
sat, still and solemn as the judges of the Areopagus, not 
relieving the cruel tension by the faintest indication of 
a smile or a frown. While standing before them the 
wish uppermost in my heart was that the planks of the 
old church floor would split and let me drop through 
to some happier spot : but as the awful seconds went by 
and no hope presented itself in that direction, or any 
other, a brave front was assumed, and going on the 
principle that " honesty is the best policy " the deplor- 
able condition was revealed to them : " Boys, I have no 
idea what to talk to you about this afternoon," was my 
frank avowal. " Never before has an audience of young 
men greeted me. Your august presence is overwhelm- 
ing. Since entering the W. C. T. U. work, meetings 
have been held for the public, it is true, but my speeches 
were made for the benefit either of girls or children. 



i6o A Slaveholder's Daughter 

You do not belong to the first class, so my usual re- 
marks in that line cannot be applied ; consequently, the 
nearest approach to the fitness of things will be to speak 
to you as if you were little children." 

At this the reserve of my auditors was broken and 
they laughed aloud and clapped their hands. Encour- 
aged by this demonstration of approval, without further 
apology I made a talk on Scientific Temperance, telling 
them of the evil effects of alcohol and tobacco on the 
human system. They listened with absorbing interest 
throughout, and, at the close, gave the most tumultu- 
ous applause. 

That night was spent at the college as the guest of 
the president's wife. While sitting in the parlor after 
supper a committee of young men waited on me with 
a request from the student body that an address be made 
to them in the chapel, saying that study hours had been 
postponed, by special favor of the president, until the 
meeting was concluded. The invitation staggered me. 
" Oh ! boys ! " was my reply in real distress and em- 
barrassment," you were told all that I know in the 
church this afternoon; my supply is exhausted." 
" Come and tell us the same things over," they urged. 
" The students are so anxious to hear you once more. 
Several sent word that if you would speak to them again 
to-night they would sign the pledge against the use of 
liquor and tobacco." That inducement was too alluring 
to be resisted ; so my opposition weakened and consent 
was given to hold a meeting. 

As soon as the delegation disappeared to report the 
result of the interview and to gather the clans, my room 



Away Down South in Dixie i6i 

was sought, and covering my face with my hands to 
shut out all distracting objects, my brain was ransacked 
for every fact and story that had ever been read or 
heard on the temperance question, and every deed of 
pluck and heroism was marshalled forth, from the 
Spartan boy with the fox in his bosom to the valorous 
deeds of the armies of Napoleon, and down to those of 
Robert E. Lee. 

In the course of half an hour an escort of a goodly 
number came to conduct me to the chapel which was 
filled with students and professors. Then my first im- 
promptu address was made. The effort was richly 
rewarded by securing the signature of nearly every stu- 
dent to the double pledge against the use of alcoholic 
stimulants and tobacco in any form. The next day 
Washington was left with a glad heart but a wiser 
head. Dwelling on the trying lesson that had been 
taught me by this new experience, I resolved never to 
leave home again on another campaign without being 
fortified for every emergency by a stack of speeches to 
appeal to every class — from babbling babes to scheming 
politicians. 

From the moment of enlisting in the ranks of temper- 
ance reformers, work was done with unremitting zeal. 
The eternal principles of righteousness upon which the 
Woman's Christian Temperance Union was founded 
appealed to my highest convictions and commanded my 
unswerving loyalty. 

" In December, 1873, under the inspiration of a 
temperance address delivered by Dr. Dio Lewis, of 
Boston, the women of Hillsboro, Washington Court 



1 62 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

House, and other Ohio towns, were moved to concerted 
action against the saloon. They gathered in the streets 
to pray, and marched two by two into saloons. They 
besought the men who drank to cease to do so, and the 
men who sold to give up the business, and invited all to 
accept Christ. In fifty days this whirlwind of the 
Lord had swept the liquor traffic out of two hundred 
and fifty towns and villages." 

The outcome of this crusade which was so strongly 
characterized by the outpouring of the Holy Ghost was 
the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. The first 
local society of that great organization was formed in 
Frcdonia, N. Y., on December 15th, 1873. In August, 
1874, at Chautauqua, N. Y., a meeting was held " from 
which the call for permanent national organization was 
sent forth." In Cleveland, Ohio, November i8th and 
20th, 1874, the National Woman's Christian Temper- 
ance Union was organized. It was incorporated March 
1st, 1883, in Washington, D. C. Its growth has been 
marvelous. " It has fifty-four auxiliary State and five 
Territorial Unions, besides that of the District of Co- 
lumbia and Hawaii, and is the largest society ever com- 
posed exclusively of women and conducted entirely by 
them. It has been organized in every State and Terri- 
tory of the nation, and locally in about ten thousand 
towns and cities. 

" The lines of its work are : I. Organization. II. 
Preventive. III. Educational. IV. Evangelistic. V. 
Social. VI. Legal. 

"Besides these are: i. The Affiliated Interests. 2. 
The Standing Committees. 



Away Down South in Dixie 163 

" Under the six chief heads are grouped various de- 
partments, each one under the charge of a National Su- 
perintendent, as follows: 

1. Young Woman's Work. 

2. Work Among Foreign-Speaking People. 

3. Loyal Temperance Legion Work. 

4. Work Among Colored People. 

5. Health and Heredity. 

6. Scientific Temperance Instruction. 

7. Physical Education. 

8. Sunday School Work. 

9. Temperance Literature. 

10. Temperance and Labor. 

11. Parliamentary Usage. 

12. Press. 

13. Presenting our Cause to Influential Bodies. 

14. Anti-Narcotics. 

15. Evangelistic. 

16. Unfermented Wine. 

17. Proportionate and Systematic Giving. 

18. Non-alcoholic Medication. 

19. Penal and Reformatory Work. 

20. Work among Railway Employes. 

21. Work among Soldiers and Sailors. 
^2. Work among Lumbermen. 

^-iy. Work among Miners. 

24. Sabbath Observance. 

25. Department of Mercy. 

26. Purity. 

27. Rescue Work. 



164 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

28. Mothers' Meetings. 

29. Purity in Literature and Art. 

30. Parlor Meetings. 

31. Flower Mission. 

32. State and County Fairs. 

33. Legislation. 

34. Franchise. 

35. Peace and Arbitration. 

36. Kindergarten. 

2,7. School Savings Banks. 

38. Medal Contest Work. 

39. Christian Citizenship. 

40. W. C. T. U. Institutes." 

The World's Woman's Christian Union " is com- 
posed of national unions, and was formed in November, 
1883. It is organized in forty nations, with a total mem- 
bership of about half a million." 

The reformation of the drunkard and the banishment 
of the open saloon were the primary objects of the ear- 
lier endeavors of that devoted band of women known as 
the W. C. T. U. ; upon these rocks they still stand, but 
their platform has '* widened with the process of the 
suns " until the White Ribbon movement rests upon a 
foundation of plans and principles broad and generous 
enough for the establishment of a church, a state, or a 
nation. Its purpose now is to carry the philosophy of 
Jesus Christ into politics, to make a practical applica- 
tion of the laws of God to those of men; to cause mo- 
rality to become the rock-bed of our national life and 
brotherhood the ozone of its atmosphere; to advance 
the welfare of women ; to defend the childhood of the 



Away Down South in Dixie 165 

world, and to protect the home. The numerous de- 
partments of the Woman's Christian Temperance 
Union form a mosaic of many thousand colors. The 
colossal figures worked out are God in government; 
man as the exponent of righteousness in citizenship; 
woman in church and state as the daughter of God and 
the partner of her brother man. In the brilliant array 
of glorious possibilities for the human race that the 
organization has held forth, it was the splendid oppor- 
tunity for broadening and illuminating the horizon of 
woman that most attracted me. 

Within the first year of m.y ministry I traveled into 
almost every section of Mississippi and organized over 
one hundred unions among the young women and the 
juveniles, speaking to the children in the afternoons, to 
mixed audiences at night; holding business meetings 
in the mornings to discuss methods of work best calcu- 
lated to forward the interests of the societies formed, 
and to appoint superintendents of the different depart- 
ments adapted to start the union to move in easy chan- 
nels. As a reward for my strenuous efforts the 
Woman's Christian Temperance Union sent me as dele- 
gate-at-large from the State to the National Convention, 
which met in Chicago in 1889. That was my first at- 
tendance upon a national convention. The large num- 
ber of delegates present, the thousands of people who 
thronged to each session, the admirable executive power 
displayed by Miss Willard and other leaders, the thrill- 
ing debates on the floor, and the fine logic and eloquence 
that blazed in the numerous evening addresses was all a 
revelation to me. More practical knowledge was gained 



1 66 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union during 
those few days spent in Chicago, and more was learned 
of human nature, than in all the personal experience 
acquired in months of field work. 

Nothing but joy filled my heart over my first efforts 
for the young people of my native state. For a number 
of years there had been a profound unrest in the heart 
of the girlhood of the New South. Faint ©choes of the 
secrets of a higher, stronger life, struggling conscious- 
ness of the necessity for more exalted action, whisper- 
ings of unborn possibilities suggested aspirations in di- 
rections that before had been only dimly outlined. The 
surging, aching, loving heart of womanhood began to 
throb and pulse with heavenly assurances of the right 
to do and to dare, striving to find a channel through 
which it could voice its longings. The Young Woman's 
Christian Temperance Union, that vast force, with its 
multiplied interests and varied, ever-widening scope of 
thought and accomplishment, that splendid factor which 
had arisen in our midst like a giant in its power, gen- 
erating such light and sweetness over the already lu- 
minous fields of modern philanthropy, supplied the de- 
mands of the hour. 

It has been a benediction to the girls of the South 
whose lives it has touched. A subtle, unseen spirit has 
taken hold of the finest faculties of their souls and 
stirred to action every holy impulse, producing changed 
beings. Indift'erence has been turned to enthusiasm ; 
selfishness has been broadened into sympathy ; unkind- 
ness has been swallowed up into an abounding charity ; 
idle hands have reached out for employment; narrow 



Away Down South in Dixie 167 

minds have expanded and become glorified by the quick- 
ening, upHfting agency of love for humanity that has 
poured, like a divine radiance, into their slumberous lives 
and raised them up to God. In the few years since the 
Southern girls have donned the white ribbon and en- 
listed in the ranks of the Young Woman's Christian 
Temperance Union, in conjunction with the young 
women of the North, East and West, they have assisted 
in campaigns for constitutional amendments; secured 
signatures to the Polyglot Petition ; supported rest cot- 
tages, lunch houses and headquarters for working girls ; 
taken charge of mission meetings at night ; sent singers 
to the hospitals ; dispensed substantial charities through 
the medium of the Flower Mission in their visits to 
prisons, almshouses and the homes of the poor and dis- 
tressed; distributed literature, studied the subject of 
physical culture and formed hygiene clubs ; introduced 
text-books in the public schools teaching the effects of 
alcohol and tobacco upon the human system ; established 
loan libraries, engaged in evangelistic, kindergarten, so- 
cial purity, Sunday-school, juvenile and press work ; la- 
bored among lumbermen, sailors, foreigners and the col- 
ored population; conducted Demorest Medal contests, 
held Gospel Temperance meetings and obtained thous- 
ands of signatures to the pledge. They are now support- 
ing beds for young women in the Temperance Hospital • 
at Chicago, and in the cities have established drinking I 
fountains for man and beast. They are raising funds 
to aid in carrying on missionary temperance work in 
foreign fields; circulating petitions among the high 
schools and colleges against the use of wine and all al- 



1 68 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

coholic beverages at class suppers and alumni dinners ; 
conducting parliamentary drills, prosecuting topical 
studies and discussions; giving receptions and enter- 
tainments in their parlors, besides holding public meet- 
ings of a high order to create sentiment for the temper- 
ance cause, and educate the people up to the idea of total 
abstinence and prohibition and gain the co-operation of 
young men. They are offering prizes of money to pu- 
pils who write the best essay on temperance, and several 
are going out into different states as organizers and 
lecturers, and one into foreign fields as a missionary. 

The young women of New Orleans, who were mem- 
bers of the Y. W. C. T. U., for a long time supported 
a room in an institution for the destitute, near the Char- 
ity Hospital, vv^here men and women could find a refuge, 
before entering the great world again to seek work and 
a shelter. The girls of Richmond, Virginia, one year, 
raised $600 which they expended in sustaining a retreat 
for the sick. The Y. W. C. T. U. of Asheville, North 
Carolina, in co-operation with the King's Daughters, 
established an admirable, uniform system of charity by 
which the poor of the city were clothed and fed. The 
young women of Mississippi have been potent factors 
in bringing temperance sentiment up to the high-water 
mark which the state now enjoys. All of this blessed 
service is simply a faint foregleam of the noble attain- 
ments and beautiful opportunities which the future 
holds for Southern girls. When they devote wholly 
their latent, unused powers to rid this drink-cursed Re- 
public of its over-shadowing curse, then indeed, will be 
started a wave of helpfulness that will swell into a great 



Away Down South in Dixie 169 

ocean for the temperance cause and for the evangeHza- 
tion of the world whose shores will be bounded only by- 
eternity. 

The most hopeful feature of the Young Woman's 
Christian Temperance Union is the standard that the 
girls have set up for the equal purity of both sexes. " A 
white life for two," is their war-cry. The day will soon 
go by when a young man, indulging in strong drink and 
poisoning himself with nicotine, will have the assurance 
to ask a girl, pure in heart and life, to link her destiny 
with his. The day is fast coming when a young woman 
will place too high an estimate upon herself to accept 
the attentions of a young man given to dissipated 
habits. The watchword that will be handed down the 
lines and rung from the hill-tops of advancement will 
be: Sobriety, or no husbands. The new law that is 
being evolved out of the old chaos is that when the holi- 
est of alliances is consummated, it will be upon a true 
basis. 

The most prominent figures in this era of the history 
of the South are the young women ; formed for all pos- 
sibility, ready for every development, capable of every 
achievement ; strong, earnest, brainy, progressive, com- 
prehensive! The light of the future is in their faces, 
the shuttles of destiny are in their hands, the sugges- 
tive tread of their oncoming feet sounds ominously near. 
They have adopted the creed of a new philosophy. The 
non-entity of other times has vanished ; in her stead has 
come the energetic, up-to-date, gracious entity who is 
getting hold of the springs of power through legislation ; 
who Is turning the locks of the doors that have shut 



170 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

her out from the sanctum-sanctorum of ecclesiastical 
polity ; whose sweet voice is swelling into louder, deeper 
tones, and is singing out from pulpit and from platform 
the glad songs of freedom, of advancement, of human 
rights and privileges. 



CHAPTER XVII 

HOW '" DE CAP'n come THU ** 

What's brave, what's noble, let's do it after the high Roman 
fashion, and make death proud to take us. — Shakspeare. 

The first invitation that was given me to speak out 
of the borders of Mississippi came from Mrs. Caroline 
E. Merrick, President of the Louisiana Woman's Chris- 
tian Temperance Union, and afterward one of the fore- 
most leaders of the suffrage movement in the South. 
She requested me to attend the State W. C. T. U. Con- 
vention which was to meet in New Orleans, and to de- 
liver an address on the evening that would be given to 
the Young Woman's Branch. Consent was forwarded, 
but considerable misgiving was felt as to my capability 
to reach the standard demanded by a city audience. 
After my speech in New Orleans was made an invita- 
tion was extended to lecture and organize throughout 
the state. Very soon a work in Louisiana was begun 
that has continued, not only for successive months, but, 
at intervals, through successive years. 

My experiences in that state alone would fill volumes. 
A way was made into nearly every nook and cranny ; 
from the Red river district in the North to the blue 
waters of Berwick Bay in the South ; from the cotton 

171 



172 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

fields of the Mississippi to the timber-lands of Lak^ 
Charles ; often riding twenty miles in a lumbering ve- 
hicle through the pine woods to reach an appointment, 
or puffing down streams in energetic tugs through chill- 
ing winds and surprising sand-bars ; entertained in an 
humble cottage to-day or in a mansion to-morrow ; eat- 
ing fat bacon and cold potatoes on a lonely prairie, or 
feasting like the gods on the Atchafalaya and the 
Ouitchita ; depressed with illness at Grand Cane or radi- 
ant at receptions from Monroe to the Crescent City. 
Ins and outs, ups and downs, arounds and abouts, but 
God in all and above all. 

There is no country in the United States like South- 
ern Louisiana. It is a land of languorous beauty, of 
poetry and romance. From New Orleans to the Texas 
line there is an unbroken stretch of territory; a broad, 
flat belt that has been utilized for rice and sugar planta- 
tions. Numerous rivers and bayous roll peacefully 
through it, adding exquisite touches to the scenery. 
Mammoth live oaks, draped in gray Spanish moss, line 
the sides of the streams, their branches almost meeting 
in the centre, forming shady arches. Sail boats with 
their white and crimson canvas, steamers, skiffs and 
numerous other craft float up and down the waters; 
over rich oyster beds, under an Italian sky; through 
zephyrs soft wth sunshine and heavy with the odor 
of orange blossoms ; in the midst of a tropical growth 
of plants and flowers as rank as in Central America; 
past ever-changing scenes of dreamy loveliness that 
soothe the senses and stimulate the ima^^ination. 

The most famous of all the rivers and bayous are the 



How "De Cap*n Come Thu " 173 

Atchafalaya and the Teche, which are connected with 
the story of Evangeline. Nearly every planter claims 
the tree under which Longfellow's heroine rested in that 
memorable search for her lover ; but at St. Martinville 
the '' Cajans " — who are the descendants of that little 
band of Acadians who left Nova Scotia in 1755, expelled 
by the English, to find a refuge in this delightful land — 
say they have the original and only Evangeline oak. 
These people still live in the primitive style of their 
progenitors, and, like Mark Twain's man in the Azores, 
" thank God and St. Peter they have no blasphemous 
desire to know more than their fathers." In traveling 
through this section, one would think he had suddenly 
dropped down into southern France. Dark, foreign 
faces are seen at every turn and the jabber of French 
tongues fills the air. This is the region from which 
Geo. W. Cable secured the material for his numerous 
stories. Here are the quaintest old houses imaginable, 
the first story of brick and the upper of frame work. 
Age and conservatism and fossilized ideas and customs 
seemingly laugh at reforms. The church of Rome holds 
full sway. The women keep up the religion. At Ope- 
lousas there is a convent of colored nuns. In the hol- 
lows of the trees about the grounds images and cruci- 
fixes are placed, before which the negro sisters bend the 
knee. 

In visiting the homes of the leading sugar planters in 
southern Louisiana, one would never dream that the 
civil war is over. On all sides there are unmistakable 
evidences of wealth ; elegant residences, horses and car- 
riages, coachmen, dining-room servants, governesses and 



174 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

housekeepers ; in the fields, hundreds of negroes work- 
ing under an overseer, whom they call " overseer," as in 
ante-behum days. At sunrise, noon and sunset, the 
plantation bell rings and the laborers walk, or ride mules 
to their work, so many in numbers they look like bat- 
talions, particularly so as each man and woman is armed 
with a hoe, carried on the shoulder like a musket. 

It is amazing to see how the woman suffrage ques- 
tion is growing in this quiet section. Opinions are ex- 
pressed endorsing the movement that surprises the un- 
expectant listener. The women especially are having 
their eyes opened; particularly those who have been 
connected with W. C. T. U. work. They see that the 
solution of the drink problem lies to a great extent in 
woman's ballot ; and, looking deeper, they find that the 
key to the whole situation. Not only in political and 
philanthropic circles have women been brought to real- 
ize their restrictions but in ecclesiastical as well. 

Morgan City is a small town on Berwick Bay. A 
Methodist church was built there largely through the 
munificence of Capt. Pharr, a wealthy sugar planter. 
Very soon a Sunday-school was organized and Capt. 
Pharr was requested to act as superintendent. He re- 
fused. Other men were urged to accept the position, 
but they likewise refused. As a last resort, the minister 
asked Mrs. Pharr, the wife of the planter, to be super- 
intendent of the Sunday-school. She accepted. The 
Bay lay between Mrs. Pharr's home and Morgan City, 
and every Sabbath she had to pay from $1.50 to $2.00 
ferriage in crossing to and fro. There were a number 
of children in a little fishing village near, whom Mrs. 



How " De Cap*n Come Thu" 175 

Pharr wanted to take over with her to Sunday-school 
and church, as there were none near them ; but the ex- 
pense of crossing the Bay was so great she found it 
impossible to do so. Finally, she went to her husband, 
and said : " Captain Pharr, I wish you would furnish 
me a boat in which to go over to Morgan City and take 
the children from Berwick." The Captain refused, say- 
ing that it would cost too much ; besides, there was no 
one to pull the boat across the Bay, and a man would 
have to be hired at $1.00 a day to do it, and it would be 
too expensive all around. So Mrs. Pharr, quietly 
bought a boat on credit, and paid for it in one month by 
charging passage during the week to the persons who 
crossed over on business. Captain Pharr was so pleased 
with his wife's skillful financial engineering that he 
hired the boatman, and everybody went over the Bay to 
Sunday-school free of charge. 

For five years, Mrs. Pharr was superintendent of the 
Morgan City Sunday-school, and collecting steward of 
the Methodist church. At the end of that time, she 
was elected delegate by the quarterly conference to the 
district conference, which was 'held in a small adjoining 

town. She went. Bishop was in the chair. The 

report of the Morgan City work was called for. Mrs. 
Pharr arose to read what she (for she was the church) 
had done. Before she had time to open her lips, the 
Bishop said, " Madam, it is not constitutional for a 
woman to represent any church at a district confer- 
ence.'* Mrs. Pharr sat down in silence. 

Two more years rolled away. Mrs. Pharr con- 
tinued to act as Sunday-school superintendent, and 



176 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

to collect the pastors' salaries, as steward of the Meth- 
odist church. The time for another district conference 
came around. Mrs. Pharr was again elected delegate 
by the quarterly conference. " What use is there in my 
going?" she protested. "I shall not be allowed to 
speak." The presiding elder who was present assured 
her that his influence would be sufficient to guarantee 
her a hearing, so Mrs. Pharr went. Again the report 
was called for from Morgan City and again Mrs. 
Pharr arose to her feet, — this time to speak of the work 
and not to read a report. The new presiding Bishop 
said : " My sister, you cannot say a word in this confer- 
ence. You can write your report, and let a brother read 
it ; but a woman cannot be allowed to speak." Patience 
had ceased to be a virtue. Mrs. Pharr replied, in a 
spirited way, ''If I, who have served the Methodist 
church for seven years as Sunday-school superintendent 
and collecting steward, am not permitted to report my 
work before this august body of men, no brother for 
me shall read what I have done. Bishop, don't you 
think you preachers are a little inconsistent ? You urge 
the women of your church to crucify themselves con- 
stantly in class-meetings by giving their sacred personal 
experiences, and call on them to pray in public gather- 
ings ; but after a woman has done all the work she can 
in the church, she is not permitted to tell of it." There 
was no reply. The presiding elder was asked to report 
the work done in the Morgan City church, and Mrs. 
Pharr went home the second time unheard, and quietly 
resumed the double office she had held for seven years, 



How "De Cap'n Come Thu" 177 

continuing to perform the duties incident without a 
murmur, until her husband accepted Christianity and 
came to her rehef . This experience formed an epoch in 
her existence and made history that shall stand as a 
light-house for other women to steer by, and to which 
they shall look back smilingly in the better days that 
are coming. 

When Capt. Pharr first moved to St. Mary's parish 
he was very irreligious. He owned a line of steam- 
boats that ran up and down the Atchafalaya from New 
Iberia to New Orleans. Soon after his marriage his 
wife, who was very devout, said to him : " Sunday traf- 
fic is a terrible offense in the sight of God. You must 
stop your boats from running on the Sabbath." 
" What ! " he exclaimed, in his stentorian voice that 
made the very rafters ring, " stop my boats when every 
other man's boats are running on Sunday! It would 
be sheer madness ! It would ruin me forever ! " 
" Capt. Pharr," she persisted, " I shall never use a cent 
that comes from the desecration of the Lord's Day, 
either for myself or my children. It would be preferable 
to suffer want than to roll in riches that came from 
such a source. If you will sell out your boats and go 
into some other business I will work to help you get 
another start." 

The Captain rebelled fiercely for awhile, but finally 
concluded that nothing could withstand a determined 
woman, especially when backed by religious fervor. In 
a short while he disposed of every boat and invested the 
money in a sugar plantation. Fortune favored his new 



1 7^ A Slaveholder's Daughter 

venture and wealth poured into his hands. His posses- 
sions became great and his home on Berwick Bay is one 
of the most magnificent in the entire South. 

The story of Captain Pharr's conversion is exceed- 
ingly interesting. He had a way of rising very early 
as he did in the days when he was a penniless boy in 
North Carolina and of going about his premises attend- 
ing to any work that required oversight. Mrs. Pharr 
held family prayers with her three little sons every 
morning before breakfast. The Captain returned from 
his tour of inspection sooner than usual one day. As 
h'e i:eached the door of the sitting-room his attention 
was arrested by the sound of a childish voice in prayer. 
His oldest son was saying, " Dear Lord Jesus, bless my 
papa and make him a Christian." Then the second boy 
began his prayer with " Our Father who art in heaven," 
and ended : " Dear Lord Jesus, bless my papa and make 
him a Christian." The third little fellow repeated the 
same prayer and finished with the same request that his 
father be made a Christian. At last Mrs. Pharr prayed 
most earnestly for the blessing of God to rest on her 
family, returning thanks for all that had come to them 
through the riches of His grace, and ended her petition 
with, " O, God, open the eyes of my husband and bring 
him to a full knowledge of Jesus Christ." Captain 
Pharr said it broke his heart. He made a complete sur- 
render, then and there, to God. This was before he sold 
his line of steamboats. 

Once, while in Georgia, I heard an evangelist, who 
had been entertained at Captain Pharr's home, tell the 
story of the conversion of a certain steamboat captain 



How ^*De Cap'n Come Thu'' 179 

which was very similar to the experience of Captain 
Pharr, with the addition of an incident illustrative of 
its results. The revivalist said that the news spread 
among the hands on the boats that ** de Cap'n had come 
thu." " Comin' thu " is an expression common with 
the negroes, implying that a profession of religion has 
been made ; '' thu " being a contraction of the word 
through. The phrase has originated from the custom 
that the colored people have of going into trances and 
making visits through heaven and hell, hearing " un- 
speakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to 
utter," before they declare themselves fit subjects for 
baptism. One of the boats was loading up for a trip to 
New Orleans. Everything was in a great stir. There 
were loud calls and impatient answers, perpetual run- 
nings to and fro, and a general mixture of gay songs 
and muttered curses filled the air. Dinah, the steward- 
ess, had finished her work and was standing calmly in 
the sun talking to the cook. " Aunt Milly," she asked 
with an awe-struck face, " did yo' know dat de Cap'n 
had done come thu ? " " Hush, nigger ! " said Aunt 
Milly, " doan' yo' talk sech fooFry as dat ter me. De 
jedgmen' will be here 'fore de Cap'n come thu." *' Sho's 
I live, Aunt Milly," exclaimed Dinah, " it's de Cord's 
truf ! Hezekiah tole me he seed de Cap'n come thu one 
day while de missus was er prayin' wid de chilluns. 
Hezekiah's him what waits on de white folks' table, — 
Aunt Felicy Ann's boy, Hezekiah — him what lives nex' 
to us house whar de hopper-grasses am so powerful 
thick in de spring. He are de boy." " Go off, Dinah ! 
\ ain' los' all my gumption yit! 'Spec' I'se ^wine ter 



i8o A Slaveholder's Daughter 

'blkve dat rascally chile, Hezekiah? When de Cap'n 
come thu dis ere ole 'ooman's gwine straight home ter 
Gabrell. Go 'way, nigger, I'se gwine whar I'se gwine ! 
Dat's whar I'se gwine. Take yo' brack se'f off ! " 

At that moment the Captain walked out in full view 
of them and said to the deck hands : " Now, boys, put 
up the smoke-stack ! We ought to have been five miles 
down the river by this time." The negro men sprang 
to obey orders and to adjust the smoke-stack, the upper 
joint of which had just fallen. As they got it in place, 
and the Captain was about to give the command for the 
boat to '' shove off," down it came rolling, missing the 
Captain's head by half an inch, and scattering soot fore- 
and-aft. The Captain opened his lips to swear as he 
had been in the habit of doing all his life on such aggra- 
vating occasions ; but his face grew suddenly very white 
and the oaths died in his throat unuttered. With a most 
heroic effort he summoned up a smile and said : " That 
is all right, boys ! Of course you couldn't help it. Now, 
let's at it again ! " Once more the men worked like 
beavers and adjusted the joint. The bell began to give 
the signal to *' cut loose," when down lumbered the pipe 
the second time, bringing a shower of cinders and a 
shadow of dismay. The Captain's face grew red with 
rage, and his eyes blazed ; but he checked the volume of 
imprecations surging between his teeth, bit his lips and 
walked rapidly to the stern of the boat and gazed down 
the river. When he regained control of himself he re- 
turned, and cried out, " All right, boys ! We'll try it 
again ! " Once more the men tugged and pulled and 
screwed the smoke-stack in place. Surely it would stay 



How "De Cap'n Come Thu*' i8i 

this time. The sun was high in the heavens. The time 
for starting was already two hours behind. The Cap- 
tain paced up and down trying to suppress his impa- 
tience. The boat loosed from its moorings and began 
to puff down the Atchafalaya, when, lo ! with a terrific 
thud the smoke-pipe fell the third time. Without mov- 
ing a muscle of his face the Captain called out, " Come 
on, boys ! that joint's down again. I'll help you put it 
up this time and if it falls any more I'll order a new one 
as soon as I get to New Orleans." 

Afar ofif, and unseen, Dinah and Aunt Milly had been 
watching and listening with their hearts in their 
mouths. At the Captain's last words Aunt Milly 
clapped her hands to her head and exclaimed, " 'Fore de 
Lord, Dinah, de Cap'n's sho come thu ! " 

On visiting Captain Pharr's home after hearing the 
evangelist relate this incident I told it to him, and asked 
if it were not a chapter out of his own life. He was in- 
dignant, and exclaimed wrathfully, " The idea of my 
being such a poor steamboat man as to allow a smoke- 
stack to fall three times! If that absurdity was pub- 
lished to the world as connected with me it would ruin 
my reputation as a captain and the reputation of the 
story-teller for veracity. The negroes got their idea of 
my conversion from seeing me hoist a steamboat chim- 
ney one day and not lose my temper." 

Whether in adjusting the smoke-stack or hoisting a 
chimney it matters not. One thing is very certain: 
" The Cap'n's sho come thu." 



CHAPTER XVIII 

A SOUTHERN PILGRIMAGE 

The earnestness of life is the only passport to the satisfaction 
of life. — Theodore Parker. 

Two years after entering the work of the Woman's 
Christian Temperance Union I was sent as a delegate 
from Mississippi to the National Convention which met 
in Boston, in 1891, and was there made a national or- 
ganizer and lecturer for that association. The city was 
reached in time to allow me the privilege of attending 
the first international convention ever held by the white 
ribboners. There were women from almost every civ- 
ilized country on the face of the earth, all coming 
together in one great work, all meeting on one broad 
platform, all having " one Lord, one faith, one bap- 
tism." 

While in Boston a reception was given by the Mas- 
sachusetts Woman Suffrage Association and the 
Woman Suffrage League of the city to the delegates of 
the National W. C. T. U. Convention, who were inter- 
ested in the living question of the political emancipation 
of women. As it had been an engrossing faith with me 
for years, I gladly profited by the opportunity to become 
a part of such an historic occasion. 

182 



A Southern Pilgrimage 183 

After an hour spent in social intercourse Lucy Stone, 
noble heroine, devoted apostle and dauntless pioneer 
of the Equal Rights movement of this country, called 
the meeting to order and requested that the guests 
make brief speeches regarding their convictions on the 
subject of Woman Suffrage, and stating the position 
it occupied in the estimation of the public in the sec- 
tions where they lived. Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, who 
appeared before me for the first time since my early 
experience in New Orleans, welcomed the visitors. 
Prominent Southern women, among them Mrs. Lide 
Merriwether, of Tennessee, and Miss Frances Griffin 
of Alabama, expressed themselves as being entirely in 
sympathy with the cause of Equal Rights. The North- 
ern and Western women who spoke afterward were not 
more radical. This meeting did much to bring into 
closer unity the leaders in the two greatest reforms of 
the nineteenth century — the Woman's Christian Tem- 
perance Union and the Woman Suffrage Association. 

After the adjournment of the national conven- 
tion I made Boston my headquarters for two weeks 
while visits were paid to its classic suburbs. 

On my return to Mississippi, I stopped en route in 
Washington. The beautiful capital has since become 
the scene of many notable occasions in my life. The 
most prominent were the tremendous meeting held in 
Convention hall, which seated 7,000 people, in honor 
of the presentation of the Polyglot Petition, in 1895, 
to the President of the United States ; the Woman's 
Council in the same year; the International Conven- 
tion of the Christian Endeavor, in 1896, and the Na- 



184 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

tional Convention of the American Woman Suffrage 
Association, in 1898. 

During the three years following I traveled through 
nearly every Southern state in the interest of the 
Woman's Christian Temperance Union, from Delaware 
to Texas, speaking in halls, parlors, churches, theatres, 
school-houses and in the open air; to negroes as well 
as to the white population; to audiences of children, 
young women, and mixed assemblies ; in public and 
private schools, colleges and universities for both boys 
and girls ; before conferences of ministers, chautauquas, 
schools of methods. State Teachers' Associations ; State 
and National Conventions of the W. C. T. U., the Chris- 
tian Endeavor, and Woman Suffrage Association, and 
have lobbied in the Mississippi legislature to secure the 
passage of the Scientific Temperance Instruction bill. 
The most interesting of all these tours was the visit to 
the Naval Academy at Annapolis, and to the home of 
the Southern novelist, Augusta Evans Wilson, in Mo- 
bile. 

Often in small towns I have spent the entire morning 
in going from house to house telling the people of our 
work, and drumming up a congregation to hear me at 
night. At other times I have been met at the railway 
station by committees bearing flowers, and have been 
carried to handsome homes behind white horses, in a 
carriage decorated with white ribbons, to be welcomed 
later on by tremendous city audiences. Week by week 
I have lectured twice a day and have organized unions 
wherever there w^as the faintest possibility of success; 
and in almost every case have been received with cheer- 



A Southern Pilgrimage 185 

ing cordiality and treated with the utmost appreciation 
and generous hospitahty. If there is strong preju- 
dice in the hearts of the Southern people against 
woman's public work, as the world at large is inclined 
to believe, the force of it has never been felt by me. Op- 
position either subsided or was silent in the presence of 
my exuberant enthusiasm. Girls belonging to the most 
conservative and cultured families joined the Young 
Woman's Christian Temperance Union and developed 
into admirable philanthropists; gentle, timid ladies 
from the seclusion of their home life unhesitatingly 
entered the ranks of the mother society, and men, un- 
used to the " new woman " movement smiled approval 
and gave their heartiest support. 

The conviction has grown with my wider knowledge 
of them that Southerners, though tenacious of social 
traditions, are hospitable to new ideas and are chival- 
rous toward a woman who wishes their co-operation 
provided that she comes to them also as a lady. A study 
of state codes will show that the South has led in mak- 
ing women equal with men before the law. Owing 
partly to the simplicity of its social structure new 
thoughts permeate quickly ; and being throughout a re- 
ligious people moral questions, such as the temperance 
reform, if put to the popular white Southern vote would 
win by a large majority ; and if the dangers of negro 
suffrage were settled forever it is scarcely a matter of 
doubt but that the men of the South would trust the 
women with the ballot, except in those states where 
there is a large illiterate white vote ; and this, not only 
because ignorance is an insurmountable obstacle to 



i86 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

progress, but because the unscrupulous politician is al- 
ways on hand bidding for this vote. 

That the above statement respecting the attitude of 
the South towards the temperance question is not ex- 
travagant may be inferred from the following facts fur- 
nished by chairmen of the executive committees of the 
Prohibition party, and other prominent prohibition 
workers in the Southern states, and by the Secretary of 
State in Mississippi, during the months of January and 
February, 1899: Mississippi has 75 counties; of these 
61 are under a state local option, dramshop law ; 14 
liquor counties only in this commonwealth. Georgia 
has 137 counties; 113 are under prohibitory law, six or 
seven of these having dispensaries ; — 24. liquor counties 
in Georgia. The Willingham bill, which called for the 
prohibition of the manufacture and sale of liquor 
in Georgia, was before the legislature of that state 
in the winter of 1899. It passed the house by 
93 yeas to 65 nays, but was defeated in the senate 
by a vote of 26 to 14. Kentucky has 119 coun- 
ties; 73 are under local option, leaving 46 in which 
there are open saloons; parts of 28 of these counties 
are " dry." Florida has 44 counties ; 20 are under 
local option ; leaving 24 "wet." Alabama has 66 coun- 
ties ; 22 are '' dry " and 44 have liquor ; however, the 
legislature, in February, 1899, passed a law which es- 
tablishes the dispensary in 15 counties, leaving 29 under 
the control of whiskey. The state of South Carolina 
is wholly under a rigid dispensary law. Maryland has 
23 counties; about half this area is under local op- 
tion. There are saloons in Tennessee only in in- 



A Southern Pilgrimage 187 

corporated towns; counties without these are dry. 
Many towns have surrendered their charters in order 
to annihilate the saloon. There is also a four- 
mile law which prohibits a dram-shop within • that 
distance of any college, factory, rolling-mill or other 
chartered institution. It is safe to estimate that much 
more than half the area of its 36 counties is under pro- 
hibitory law. North Carolina has local prohibition in 
many places in its 96 counties, and is now striving for 
a rigorous dispensary law. Three-fourths of the state 
is probably free from the open saloon. Louisiana also 
has much prohibitory territory spotted about over its 
59 parishes, and temperance sentiment is gaining 
ground steadily. Of the 220 organized counties in 
Texas 55 have prohibition by local option, and prohibi- 
tion prevails to such an extent in other counties that 
** The Texas Liquor Dealer " mourns that one-half the 
populated area of the state is covered by prohibitory 
law. These figures show that the white people of the 
South are very well masssed for the temperance cause. 
It is equally a fact that the ignorant, vicious and pur- 
chasable negro vote turns the scale in most of the ter- 
ritory where the open saloon exists. There has been 
a Prohibition party organization in every Southern state 
which has done much to create sentiment and annihilate 
the liquor traffic. 

Immediately upon entering the work of the Woman's 
Christian Temperance Union, I affiliated with the Pro- 
hibition party, as it was the only political body in the 
United States that stood for the protection of the home 
against the saloon. My brothers and I had stirring 



1 88 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

arguments on the subject. In their excitement they 
would walk rapidly up and down the long, old front 
gallery at the plantation home, and say, " You are the 
only one of a vast relationship who has gone over to 
a new political faith. If you and the women asso- 
ciated with you, continue the agitation that has begun 
you will eventually break up the Democratic party." 

One of the stock arguments against woman suffrage 
is that it is unnecessary for women to vote, as they are 
represented at the polls by the men of their families. 
For nearly eleven years I have been the only party Pro- 
hibitionist in our household, and in all that time my fa- 
ther and brothers have represented me at the ballot-box 
by voting a straight Democratic ticket. 

Mrs. M. M. Snell and I were appointed by the 
Prohibition party of Mississippi as delegates to the 
memorable National Convention which met in Pitts- 
burgh, but, to our regret, found it impossible to attend. 

Of course there were physically rough places in my 
W. C. T. U. pilgrimages through the South, — cold bed- 
rooms and colder halls and churches in winter ; frightful 
heat and suffocating dust in summer ; late hours of trav- 
eling, excessive fatigue, frequent and prolonged ill- 
nesses, often among strangers and uncomfortable 
surroundings ; but, as for real hardships, I have never 
known them. My trials have been nothing in compari- 
son to those of many women who have given their 
lives for humanity's uplift in the cause of temperance 
and prohibition. The leaders of the Woman's Christian 
Temperance Union — those in the forefront of the battle, 
are among the bravest of earth. God only can know 



A Southern Pilgrimage 189 

the crucifixions they have suffered to carry the blessed 
tidings of this later dispensation to the souls of the 
sorrowing and the heavy-laden. From the beginning 
they have been opposed and criticised, and laughed at, 
but they have gone on their way undaunted, knowing 
that they were fulfilling a divine commission and were 
backed by the power and the love of God. 

They did " not hope to be mowers, 
And to gather the ripe, gold ears, 

Until " they had " first been sowers, 
And watered the furrows with tears." 

None but those who have endured it can know the 
sting, the bitterness of having to go into homes where 
there is an utter lack of sympathy ; where in each smile 
there lurks a sneer. None but those who have tried 
it can realize the hardness of pushing the work in places 
where people did not care to receive it ; of undertaking 
to banish the wine-glass from the tables of the rich and 
the beer-mug and the whiskey-flask from the lips of 
the poor. The constant strife with the liquor trafBc and 
the political power back of it; the standing for prin- 
ciples which the world regards as useless or insulting; 
the juttings of radicalism — which means Christianity 
brought down into daily life — against conservatism 
which often means selfishness. The loneliness of spirit, 
the bodily fatigue, the unremitting drain on heart and 
brain and nerve that fill up the days of a worker for the 
Woman's Christian Temperance Union only the ad- 
vocates of other great reforms can rightly measure; 
but they are willing to undergo it all if, by their suffer- 



1 90 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

ings, one life can be redeemed or one community 
brought into touch with God. 

The Devonshire coast of England is very dangerous. 
It is bound by rocks that mean death to any ship that 
strikes upon them. For many years there have been 
men employed by the government to walk up and down 
that sea-girt point to warn passing vessels. They are 
called life-saving-men. They have worn steep paths 
into the solid rock, which their faithful, tireless feet 
have pressed during the time of their ceaseless march- 
ings to and fro. The keen wind bites them and the salt 
waves drench them and many are swept into the sea; 
but their places are supplied, the watch is kept up, the 
signals are given and the ships sail by into their harbors 
of safety. The leaders of the Woman's Christian 
Temperance Union are life-saving- women ; they walk 
up and down the rock-bound coast of the world's ap- 
petite and ignorance and prejudice waving the dan- 
ger signal to the souls that pass by on the great deep 
of temptation. They too have worn steep paths into 
the stony ground; they too have felt the icy wind 
and tasted the brine of the salt spray; they too have 
sunk upon the reefs and have been swept into the sea 
of eternity. However the watch is kept up; the flag 
waves on unceasingly; restless, winged feet move un- 
wearied in their ministry; storm-tossed crafts sail by 
unharmed into the harbor of peaceful lives, tinder the 
shadow of the Most High. 



CHAPTER XIX 

UPON THE HEIGHTS 

My rendezvous is appointed, it is certain ; 
My Lord will be there and wait till I come, on perfect terms; 
The great Camerado the lover true for whom I pine, will be 
there. — Walt Whitman. 

My three older brothers had left the plantation and 
had gone into the wide world to battle with life. The 
youngest was at college. On returning from one of my 
long campaigns and finding father and mother alone 
I said to them, " My first duty is to you. All thought 
of leaving home during your life-time will be relin- 
quished." The tears sprang quickly to father's eyes, 
and he exclaimed, '' My daughter, I would pray God 
daily to let me die if I thought my living would keep 
you from the work of the Woman's Christian Temper- 
ance Union." Mother said very quietly but very posi- 
tively, " So would I." Of course, under such circum- 
stances it was very easy for me to go. 

In 1893 a journey was made to Chicago to take a six 
months' course in Bible study and practical Gospel work 
in the training school established in that Arabian 
Night's city by the great evangelist, Dwight L. Moody. 
For months my traveling and speaking had been inces- 

191 



192 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

sant, and my strength had been so overtaxed, that, soon 
after arriving, great physical exhaustion followed. 
Finding it impossible to carry out the proposed pro- 
gram, this institution was left after remaining in it only 
one month. When vitality began to return lessons in 
voice culture were taken from a noted specialist. Some 
time after, on going to a hotel near the World's Fair, 
in order to visit that wonderful exposition more con- 
veniently, instruction in physical training was received 
from Baron Posse, a young Swedish nobleman, who 
was at the head of a successful institution in Boston 
for the scientific development of the human body. He 
and his pretty American wife and some of my Southern 
friends were at the same hotel with me. Among the 
latter was Miss Clara G. Baer, of New Orleans. She 
is a native of Louisiana and is another striking illustra- 
tion of what young Southern women can accomplish. 
Her childhood was spent in the South, where, as the 
little *' Dixie " of the home, she grew into a girl of 
much spirit but not robust constitution. Her school life 
was passed, for the most part, in Kentucky. As she 
approached womanhood the need of a strong, vigorous 
physical being was felt more and more. The dream 
of her life was to be able to do her part in the world's 
work unencumbered by weakness and days of pain. 
How to do it became an absorbing question. To leave 
the anchorage of home and start out alone to find the 
way was opposed to every family custom, and be- 
came the cause of many a controversy with those 
who loved her. About this time, God sent into her life 
a woman whose own experience enabled her to grasp 
this young girl's need. She advised her to go to New 



Upon the Heights 193 

England and take up the work which had so long lain 
near her heart, saying : " Remember, we cannot afford 
to neglect one opportunity for self-improvement. You 
feel the need — leave to God the rest." Acting on this 
advice, Miss Baer went to Boston, where she soon 
met Baron Nils Posse and his wife. During her 
summer work in his classes at Martha's Vineyard they 
became warm, personal friends ; and when, in the fall, 
they invited her to make her home with them, if she de- 
cided to remain in Boston, it seemed as though the way 
was being pointed out most clearly. 

Miss Baer's professional life may be said to have 
begun while still a pupil of Baron Posse ; for he soon 
appointed her to take charge of a large gymnasium for 
women at Waltham, Massachusetts. She graduated 
from the Posse Gymnasium in the class of '91. Imme- 
diately after her graduation she secured the position of 
Director of Swedish Gymastics in the Boston School of 
Oratory during its summer term. In the fall of that 
year, she was made a member of the regular faculty but 
was suddenly summoned South by illness in her family. 
Being unable to return immediately to Boston, she ac- 
cepted offers of work at her home in New Orleans, the 
positions being Director of the Ladies' Class of the 
Southern Athletic Club and of the physical work at 
the Ouincy school. She was also made a visiting 
teacher at Newcomb College and Tulane University. 
In the spring of '92 she decided to remain at Newcomb 
and was then elected to the faculty. Through her con- 
nection with the Woman's Christian Temperance 
Union, as State Superintendent of Physical Education, 
with the Louisiana Chautauqua and the Peabody Sum- 



194 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

mer Normals, she has come in touch with the most pro- 
gressive element, not only in Louisiana, but the entire 
South. In 1894 she was instrumental in securing the 
passage of the law which makes physical education a 
'required branch in the public school curriculum, thus 
placing Louisiana on record as the second state in the 
Union to take such a step — Ohio being the first. Miss 
Baer's influence and recognition have passed Into the 
national work of the Woman's Christian Temperance 
Union and she is now one of the associate superintend- 
ents of the department of physical training. She in- 
vented the new ball game " Nev/comb," and she has also 
revised " Basket Ball," which she calls *' Basquette." 
Both of these games are copyrighted and published in 
booklet form. Miss Baer has produced a hand book of 
gymnastics for the school-room, called '' Progressive 
Lessons in Physical Education," which is in its second 
edition, the first being published by the School Board 
of New Orleans for use in connection with her instruc- 
tions to the teachers of that city. It is now used in their 
schools. Miss Baer is one of the editors of the '" Posse 
Gymnasium Journal," Boston, Massachusetts, and for 
the past three years has been lecturer on Medical Gym- 
nastics at the New Orleans Sanitarium and Touro In- 
firmary Training Schools for Nurses. 

During the World's Fair the rare opportunity was 
granted of meeting many distinguished women from 
all parts of the earth. The most famous and interesting 
was Susan B. Anthony, the intrepid advocate of Equal 
Rights. She was filled, as in her youth, with the in- 
spiration of a mighty purpose. Under its influence she 



Upon the Heights 195 

had become the Hving embodiment of the repressed but 
unconquerable dignity of the world's womanhood, — 
calm, self-forgetful, self-sustained. It was a joy to 
behold her receiving the homage of the public whose 
criticism and opposition had so persistently followed her 
in the earlier days but against which she had stood like 
a wall of granite and had signally overcome. Several 
years later, when I was passing through Rochester, 
New York, Miss Anthony invited me to spend a nignt 
with her at her home by letter, as follows : 

Omoe or tb« P»>8eldenti ROCHESTEH, N. Y., ^^■*^.'^^. f«80^ 









196 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

On driving up to her dwelling, which was a large 
brick structure, the great suffragist met me at the car- 
riage and, taking hold of my large traveling-bag, which 
weighed at least twenty-five pounds, sprang up the 
front steps and then up the stairway as if she were a 
young Amazon instead of a woman of seventy-eight 
years. On my protesting she remarked : " We Northern 
women are accustomed to waiting on ourselves. It is 
different with Southerners." 

Some distinguished guests had been invited to tea. 
Miss Anthony was in an animated mood and talked con- 
stantly and brilliantly, relating incidents from her ear- 
lier experiences in connection with famous men and 
women who had long since passed away. Before the 
visitors departed she took a lamp in her hand and bid- 
ding us follow, climbed several flights of stairs, finally 
reaching a sky-chamber. 

This " lady with a lamp shall stand 
In the great history of the land, 
A noble type of good. 
Heroic womanhood ! " 

From piles of manuscript lying about or packed away 
securely she drew forth some pages of her biography 
that had just been completed by her faithful Boswell, 
Mrs. Ida H. Harper, but which had not yet been de- 
livered to the printing press. 

When the hour for retiring came Miss Anthony con- 
ducted me to my room and with her own hands 
prepared the bed, remarking that nothing gave her 
more pleasure than keeping house. Hanging on the 
walls of this chamber were time- faded pictures illustrat- 



upon the Heights 197 

ing the horrors of the slave trade. Miss Anthony was 
an ardent aboHtionist and has ceaselessly carried out 
and on her doctrine of human emancipation. 

During my six months' stay in Chicago, in 1893, a 
most interesting trip was made to Canada, in response 
to an invitation to deliver an address before the 
International Convention of the Christian Endeavor 
Society, which, that year, met in Montreal. 

At Kingston we boarded the steamer, Bohemian, 
and had a charming trip down the St. Lawerence, 
passing the Thousand Islands and successfully shoot- 
ing the Lachine Rapids. 

The day following the adjournment of the con- 
vention, I went to Quebec, visiting every point of 
interest in the quaint old city and for many miles 
beyond, — from the Plains of Abraham to the beautiful 
Falls of Montmorency. The greater and more 
magnificent Falls of Niagara were taken in on my 
return trip to Chicago. 

The year 1893 was memorable for me in many ways. 
John G. Woolley, the celebrated prohibition and 
Christian citizenship orator, was met soon after 
coming back from Canada, and an invitation was re- 
ceived from him to attend a convention, to be held at 
Rest Island, Minnesota, a short distance from the 
twin cities, St. Paul and Minneapolis. This lovely 
spot lies in the heart of the dimpling waters of Lake 
Pepin which is an expansion of the upper Mississippi. 
On its wooded banks, in deepest solitude, surrounded 
by enchanting scenery, Mr. Woolley had established 
a retreat for men cursed with the appetite for strong 



198 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

drink. They came without money consideration, to 
seek release, through the grace of Jesus Christ, from 
the chains that bound them. In the early morning 
and at twilight those sin-sick men gathered in the 
bright, east room, where gospel services were con- 
ducted by one of the many ministers attending the 
convention. These were times of tender communing 
with God, of the birth of souls to the gladness of 
redemption, of confession of sin and consecration to 
a higher life. 

In that restful, blessed place my soul began to 
hunger more for God. I yearned for a closer touch, 
a deeper knowledge, a truer hand-clasp, a safer walk 
with my Redeemer than had yet been realized. Daily 
the burden was with me of the consciousness that my 
religious life needed a clearer coloring, a finer texture, 
a more abiding strength. A desire to see God '* face 
to face, " to talk with Him upon the heights was 
ever present. Hours were spent in agonizing prayer 
and passionate weeping. At length the glory of God 
shone upon me and there came a full baptism of the 
Holy Ghost.' Joy and peace had followed my con- 
version, but as the years had gone by with their 
increasing responsibilities the sweetness of entire de- 
pendence upon God had departed and the old deadness 
had begun to creep over my soul. With this renewal 
of tryst with my Lord, there came ' again the same 
rest and gladness that accompanied my first meeting 
with Christ; but it was deeper and calmer, and 
mingled with a mysterious, wonderful outpouring of 
the Spirit. Some writer has said : " It is well to take 



Upon the Heights 199 

time to mend one's friendships." It has been proven in 
my experience that it is necessary, at intervals along 
life's journey, to make fresh consecrations, to renew 
our covenants with God. 



CHAPTER XX 

ACROSS THE SEA 

How can we tell what coming people are aboard the ships 
that be sailing to us now from the unknown seas? 

— Chas. Dickens. 

On returning from Chicago, in November, 1893, my 
work of organization and lecturing was resumed in the 
Southern states and carried on without interruption tm- 
til May, 1895. At that time the State Convention of 
the Mississippi Woman's Christian Temperance Union 
met in Natchez. Mrs. L. S. Mount, who had served 
so long and faithfully in the presidency, resigned, and 
the honor of filling her place was conferred upon me. 
Within three weeks after, I received a cablegram from 
Miss Willard, who was then in England, asking me to 
come at once to London. An International Convention 
of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union was to be 
held there at which she desired me to be present. Fa- 
ther and mother insisted that the call be accepted. A 
formal resignation of my office as State President was 
made, as the length of my sojourn abroad would be un- 
certain. The fact of having a vice-president-at-large 
insured that the machinery of the state organization 
would move without break. The health of my oldest 

200 



Across the Sea 201 

brother had failed two years before and he had returned 
to the old home ; he had become so much better that all 
of us thought he was on the road to complete recovery. 
Knowing he could never be sufficiently robust for active 
business, it was planned for him to live with father and 
mother. 

In a short time every preparation for my departure 
was finished. After a tender farewell and '* God speed " 
from my dear ones, I was soon traveling to New York, 
with a heart full of thanksgiving to my Heavenly 
Father for His marvellous blessings. The dream of my 
life was about to be realized, — a trip to Europe was close 
at hand. 

Several days were spent at Prohibition Park, Staten 
Island, attending the farewell meetings which were held 
in honor of the delegates from the United States and 
Canada to the World's W. C. T. U. Convention in Lon- 
don. At last we stood beside the ship that was to carry 
us across the ocean. The time for it to move off had 
almost arrived; but my trunk had not come. My un- 
easiness grew with the flying moments ; still it did not 
appear. A dear friend who stood by me, noticing my 
anxiety, said softly, again and again, " You must learn 
to trust God in the dark ! " At the last moment, the 
longed-for baggage arrived. 

On June 5th, at 4 p. m., the steamer Berlin moved 
out from New York harbor in a glow of sunshine. 
Hundreds of friends stood on the pier waving their 
handkerchiefs to the passengers, who leaned over the 
bulwarks and watched them with yearning eyes until 
the growing distance hid them from view. Then fol- 



20 2 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

lowed a rush for chairs, a diving into trunks for suitable 
clothing for the voyage, greeting of state-room com- 
panions, and general adjustment to environments. 
Later the dining-saloon was the source of attraction, to 
some of us for the first and last time. '' Life on the 
ocean wave " was delightful for fifteen hours to me. 
During the night a heavy fog settled upon the waters, 
the fog-horn blew shrilly every few moments, and the 
ship moved slowly. The fog and the horn-blowing con- 
tinued through two following days. The captain stayed 
at his post during all the weary hours without a mo- 
ment's sleep, having his meals carried up to him. He 
feared coming in contact with " ships that pass in the 
night." During all this time the ocean was calm and 
unrufifled, but black and sullen looking. The third 
morning brought the sunshine, which continued. Sea- 
sickness came with the dawn of the first day. The 
passengers sat on deck, wrapped in heavy rugs, too 
miserable to speak, too inert to miOve. Deck stewards 
moved to and fro dispensing beef tea and hard-tack, ar- 
ranging head-rests, and making the situation easy for 
the sufferers. 

The monotony was broken Sunday morning by serv- 
ices held at II o'clock, when a sermon was preached, 
and at night another meeting was conducted. The ship, 
which had been making good time, began to move 
slowly when the deep sea was reached beyond New- 
foundland, as icebergs float beneath the water in this 
latitude, and to strike one means fatality. 

There was a glorious company on board — lecturers, 
ministers, writers, singers, and (inglorious) a French 



Across the Sea 203 

variety troupe. Every day the W. C. T. U. women 
observed the noon-tide hour with prayer. In the even- 
ings entertainments were held in the dining-saloon 
when there would be music, lectures and recitations. 

In the early morning, the last day at sea, a flock of 
sea-gulls denoted that we were nearing the shores of 
England; soon we were sailing by the Scilly Islands. 
News of the arrival of the Berlin was received immedi- 
ately at the first light-house, telegraphed to South- 
ampton and cabled thence to New York. Land's End 
was later reached, bringing to remembrance Charles 
Wesley and the lines he wrote while standing there : 

" Lo ! on a narrow neck of land, 
'Twixt two unbounded seas I stand." 

Then we sailed along the Cornish coast and after 
awhile caught glimpses of hawthorn hedges, growing 
grain and stately dwellings. There were a number of 
little boats with crimson sails floating on the water and 
numerous brigs and steamers. Sky and sea and earth 
were in fullest harmony. Beautiful ! beautiful ! beauti- 
ful! 

Friday night, June 14th, we anchored in port at 
Southampton. Early next morning some one knocked 
at my state-room door. Opening it I was joyously 
greeted by Miss Jessie Ackerman, who had come down 
from London to meet the delegates to the World's W. C. 
T. U. Convention, for which organization she had just 
completed her second circuit of the globe as " Round- 
the- World Missionary." She accompanied me to the 
home of her hostess and mine, the well-known Quak- 



204 A Slaveholder's Daughter* 

eress preacher and author, Hannah Whitall Smith, 
whose " Christian's Secret of a Happy Life " has had 
more editions and been printed in more languages than 
almost any other American book. Soon we were in the 
cars, gliding swiftly through bright fields of wheat and 
crimson poppies, past charming little villages, clean and 
picturesque, to the great metropolis. 

The home of Hannah Whitall Smith is one of the 
headquarters of intellectual freedom in London. Every- 
thing in her household is beautifully attuned to the law 
of grace and beauty ; even the meals are announced by 
an exquisite strain of music proceeding from some mys- 
terious source. Among the other guests in this hospit- 
able home were Mrs. Margaret Bottome, President of 
the International Order of King's Daughters ; Frau 
Kamer and Frau Gezyski, elegant ladies from Germany, 
Miss Alii Trigg, of Finland, and Madame Selmer of 
Denmark. There had never been such immense and 
enthusiastic meetings held in the interest of the temper- 
ance reform in Great Britain as those that took place in 
London during the week that followed our arrival. 

Sunday morning, June i6th, 1895, I received the fol- 
lowing little note from Miss Willard, which was sent 
by a special messenger. It was headed 94 Ashley 
Gardens. 

"Dear Belle, 

" Howdy ! So glad ! You have been elected the only 
new (spick and span) round-the-world missionary. 
You are to speak fifteen minutes this p. m. Meet us. 
Come with H. W. S. to the platform. Ever thine, 

" Sister Frances." 



Across the Sea 205 

That afternoon I had the great honor and privilege 
of speaking in City Temple, better known as the church 
of Dr. Joseph Parker, with Miss Willard, Lady Henry 
Somerset and " Mother Stewart " of Crusade fame. 
Nearly two-hundred meetings were addressed by the 
White Ribbon speakers in London that day. After- 
ward it was my happy lot to speak on five occasions 
during this visit in England's Capital, the most notable 
being at the superb international demonstration in A\- 
bert hall, which is said to be the largest auditorium in 
the world. An audience of ten-thousand assembled and 
it was stated that tickets of admission had to be refused 
to tens of thousands more. The National Convention 
of the British Woman's Temperance Association was in 
session June 17-18. It was composed of over six- 
hundred earnest, intelligent women from England, 
Scotland and Wales. 

On Wednesday, June 19th, 1895, Miss Willard 
opened the World's Convention of the Woman's Chris- 
tian Temperance Union in Queen's Hall with 234 dele- 
gates, representing twenty-four nations, and with mem- 
bers of fraternal delegates from kindred societies. A 
morning conference the following day closed the busi- 
ness proceedings of the third Biennial Convention of 
the best organized and largest body of women on earth. 

The Lord Mayor of London gave a reception to the 
international delegates, during the World's Convention 
and, on June 21st, Lady Henry Somerset received at her 
famous country residence, the Priory at Relgate, Sur- 
rey. Hundreds of women from nearly every clime were 
rapidly transported from the heat and dust of London 
to the liistoric edifice which '' her ladyship " had just 



2o6 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

refitted most elegantly for the coming of age of her 
only son. After the guests were cordially greeted by 
Lady Henry and Miss Willard, they spent the remainder 
of the day in wandering over the beautiful grounds and 
in enjoying a study of the antique furnishings of the 
Priory in which were found rare paintings and tapestry, 
coats-of-mail and other curious relics of a long line 
of noble ancestry. 

Every day since receiving the appointment of round- 
the-world missionary I had been in an agony of unrest, 
and waited constantly on God in prayer for guidance. 
It required a hard and desperate struggle before my 
duty was made clear. My desire was strong to go, but 
the divine leadings not to go were at last very definite 
and infinitely stronger. My physical strength had 
been terribly depleted by six years of continuous public 
work and travel, and the realization was forced upon 
me that not enough vitality was left to undertake the 
arduous labors of a missionary in foreign lands. Be- 
sides, there was an abiding consciousness that it was 
not the will of my Heavenly Father that I should go at 
that time. The invisible but real hands of God were 
felt pushing me away from the acceptance of this com- 
mission. On the ship, going over, this message was 
sent me by the Father, but its import was not under- 
stood for many months after : " Beloved, think it not 
strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you 
as though some strange thing happened unto you : but 
rejoice inasmuch as ye are partaker (s) of Christ's suf- 
ferings ; that, when His glory shall be revealed, ye may 
be glad also with exceeding joy." 



Across the Sea 



207 



On the day the reception was given at the Priory I 
asked to be allowed to appear before the Executive 
Committee of the World's W. C. T. U., which met in 
the afternoon in an upper chamber. After explaining 
the reason for my action a formal resignation was made 
of the office to which I had been elected. Subsequent 
events proved the wisdom of my determination. 



CHAPTER XXI 

ON THE CONTINENT 

Like as a plank of driftwood 

Tossed on the watery main 

Another plank, encounters, meets, touches, parts again; 

So, tossed and drifting ever 

On life's unresting sea 

Men meet and greet and sever 

Parting eternally. — Sanscrit, B. C, 1600. 

Immediately after the adjournment of the World's 
great convention Miss Willard and Lady Henry Somer- 
set commissioned me to represent the Woman's Chris- 
tian Temperance Union at the International Congress of 
Christian Workers at Grindelwald, Switzerland, and my 
departure was made at once for that place with a party 
of friends from the United States. Crossing the Chan- 
nel, which was smooth and beautiful, we landed at 
Calais and were soon passing through the sunny slopes 
of la belle France. About dusk we reached the town 
where Joan of Arc met her unhappy fate. A wretched 
night was spent with seven ladies locked up in a com- 
partment in a continental car, which is such a horror to 
all travelers who have ever enjoyed the luxury of a 
sleeper on our great American lines of railway. Next 
morning we passed over into Swiss territory. We be- 

208 



On the Continent 209 

came aware at once that we had gotten into finer atmos- 
phere and on higher ground. At noon we crossed Lake 
Thun, which Hes hke a gem in the heart of the great 
mountains that surround it. 

Grindelwald is a famous resort high up in the Burnese 
Alps. The Jungfrau and the Matterhorn keep eternal 
watch over the hamlet and its kindly, simple people. 
It was here that Dr. Henry Lunn, the editor of " The 
Review of the Churches," had established a European 
Chautauqua, the leading purpose of which was to pro- 
mote church unity. The town consists of several hotels, 
a few stores, many bazaars where curios are sold to 
tourists, and a few charming ** chalets." Among the 
last is that of Madame D'Aubigne, the wife of the great 
writer. The adjacent hills are covered with the quaint 
huts of the peasants. A little Protestant church, antique 
in structure, occupies a prominent place, and adds to the 
generally striking effect. In it our meetings were held 
to advance the temperance cause, and here I had the 
pleasure of speaking. 

For four delightful, never-to-be-forgotten days we 
stayed in those rarified regions, growing nearer to God 
with every breath. At sunrise, parties began excursions 
through the mountains, some riding on horseback, 
others in carriages or on railways. We went to the very 
edge of glaciers, and looked down into the clefts of 
seemingly interminable blue ice; climbed to the tops 
of peaks ; walked over beds of snow and watched 
avalanches fall in a splendor of misty whiteness. The 
women work in the fields as regularly as the men. Often 
they were seen hitched to carts pulling heavy loads of 



2IO A Slaveholder's Daughter 

hay, or bearing burdens on their backs. Once I saw 
a man between two women drawing a wagon. 

While at Grindelwald a cordial invitation was sent 
by Lady Henry Somerset, through Miss Willard, to 
occupy a room for as long as I desired for rest and re- 
cuperation at the former's Chalet Villors, near Aigle, 
not far from Lausanne, but I decided to take a tour 
with friends through several countries of Europe in- 
stead of resting. 

From Grindelwald we went to Interlaken and there 
took a boat and passed up Lake Brienz. Soon we began 
to ascend the Alps, going over the Brunig Pass. Just 
before we reached Hergiswyl, we gained a view of Mt. 
Rigi. Beyond, nestling close to the ideally beautiful 
lake that bears its name, is the city of Lucerne. In this 
heavenly place we tarried all too short a while, then 
journeyed to Geneva, by whose borders Lake Leman 
stretches its shimmering length ; the Rhone, blue and 
placid, winds through its heart; the Alpine range 
reaches to the very edge of its quaint old streets. Mont 
Blanc rears its majestic head in full view — pink in the 
flush of the early dawn, pure white at noontide, or red 
with evening cloud-glories. I have noticed that the 
highest mountains always catch first the rays of sun- 
light in the mornings and are the last to retain them 
in rosy tints upon their snow-crowned heights when 
the shades of night draw near. So it is with those lives 
that are in nearest touch with God. They are the first 
to receive the inspiration of His great thoughts and the 
last to reflect them, standing above the multitude in 



On the Continent 211 

their lonely grandeur and translating to the world be- 
neath the holy will of the Father concerning them. 

Geneva is a great educational center. The academy 
organized by Calvin, and which was afterward honored 
by having John Knox among its first students, has 
grown into a university and has become the Mecca of 
progresssive Protestants on account of its broad spirit. 
Women are admitted to its lectures on perfect equality 
with men. Consequently the former are becoming more 
numerous every year. After making a trip to the Castle 
of Chillon, visiting the home of Voltaire in the little 
French town of Ferney, and seeing the elegant chateau 
at Coppet where Madame de Stael was banished by 
Napoleon for being too much interested in politics, and 
different historic points in Geneva — among them the 
house where Jean Jacques Rousseau was born — we 
passed into Italy. 

Turin was the first place at which we stopped, then 
Pisa. Despite the subjection that is taught women by 
the Catholic church in Europe it is pleasant to note 
signs of the breaking up of old forms of social crystalli- 
zation. In Pisa there is a normal school conducted on 
a co-educational basis ; and I was told that a number 
of women were there studying medicine. This was 
more interesting to me than the leaning tower and the 
swinging lamp from which Galileo gained his inspira- 
tion. 

Before Genoa was reached, we approached the Apen- 
nines and for a long distance sped through their 
magnificent heights and smiling valleys. At the city 



212 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

whose name is evermore linked with that of Columbus, 
begins the wonderful road along the Riviera. We 
gained here our first sight of the Mediterranean, and for 
many miles skirted close to its rock-bound coast. 

En route to Rome, in our compartment, were two 
ladies of our company besides myself, an old Italian 
woman and two foreign men. We had to make our- 
selves as comfortable as circumstances allowed, which 
meant that some slept sitting upright, some with head 
on seat and feet on valise, while others watched and 
slumbered not. At twelve the two men drew out their 
bottles and drank heavily, then lighted their cigars and 
smoked. This interesting performance was repeated at 
short intervals until the day dawned. There was a streak 
of sunlight through the reeking air, short staccato 
snorts from my companions in distress, a rubbing of 
eyes, a stretching of muscles, an exchange of miserable 
glances, an outlook through the open window to the 
shining waters of the Mediterranean, soon a dash across 
the yellow Tiber, and we were in the Eternal city. 
Rome, like heaven, is a place to be striven for, to dream 
over and hunger for; but it is better to leave to the 
imagination than to attempt to put into words the meas- 
ure of its treasures, old and new, its historic suggestion 
and the power of the awful and majestic march of the 
ages which echoes from its sacred hills. 

From Rome we went to Naples, then to Pompeii. 
Climbing to the top of the highest point of observation 
upon the walls of the once lava-buried city, we obtained 
a fine view of the surrounding landscape. Before us lay 
the Bay of Naples, placid in the July sun ; beyond it the 



On the Continent 213 

Apennines ; on the further shore the towns of Castella- 
mare, Herculaneum, and beautiful Sorrento, the birth- 
place of Tasso ; to the right Naples ; in the rear, Vesu- 
vius, sending out its volume of never-ending smoke. 

Venice answered in full all the dreams that I ever had 
of its beauties. On leaving there we traveled to Flor- 
ence, where, unfortunately, only a short time could be 
spent in the art galleries, studying the great works of 
the old masters who have rendered the city famous, and 
in threading the thoroughfares made historic by illus- 
trious men and women. 

In Milan, the white marble Cathedral was, of course, 
the centre of our desires, after that the refectory of the 
Dominican Convent, near the church of Sta. Maria della 
Grazia, where is found all that remains of " The Last 
Supper," Leonardi da Vinci's masterpiece, a fresco, 
which is almost obliterated. 

The innate tact and grace of Italian people is delight- 
ful. One day our party of W. C. T. U. women were 
crowded in a railway compartment. The only men 
present were our conductor, a cultured young English- 
man, the son of the Bishop of Winchester, and an 
elegant looking young Italian gentleman of the higher 
class. The latter could not speak a word of English, 
and was an entire stranger to the rest of us. As we 
entered he was smoking, ignoring the fact that the car- 
riage was not intended for that purpose. The ladies 
gave evidence of disapprobation ; but the unconscious 
sinner smoked on ignorant of the misery he was creat- 
ing. Finally our escort leaned toward him and said in 
the native tongue : *' Will you please discard your 



214 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

cigarette? The ladies object to it." The ItaHan looked 
around perfectly amazed. I presume it was the first 
time in his whole life that he had been made aware of 
the fact that women objected to smoking, as so many 
indulge in the habit in Europe. When the Italian saw 
the expression on the faces of his fellow-passengers he 
colored to the roots of his black, curly hair, and im- 
mediately threw away the offending cigarette ; anxious 
to atone for the discomfort he had unwittingly caused, 
he sprang to his feet, and, opening a large wicker 
basket in the rack above him, took therefrom a beautiful 
lemon with a long branch and leaves attached, and, with 
a graceful bow, handed it to the lady opposite. 

After a day and night's continuous travel from Milan, 
we arrived in Paris. Gay, charming Paris ! the loveliest 
and wickedest city on earth. There is an irresistible 
fascination in the sans souci of these impulsive, happy- 
hearted human beings. There is joy and lightness in 
the very air, that takes hold of one unconsciously ; but 
when we think of the immorality and atheism under it 
all, we are conscious of a pain and a pathos unspeak- 
able. If there is a place in the world against which 
all the artillery of Christianity should be leveled, that 
place is Paris. Now there are only feeble rush-lights 
in the midnight darkness. One-hundred and fifty Mc- 
Call Missions are scattered over France; there are 
thirty in Paris. One night, after walking down the 
brilliantly lighted boulevards with a party of friends, 
we strolled into one of these quiet little rooms. On the 
wall opposite us was written, in French, " I am the 
Resurrection and the Life," The minister who con- 



On the Continent 215 

ducted the evening service read passages from the Bible 
and announced the hymns, none of which we under- 
stood. When we had almost decided in despair to retire, 
the organ pealed forth the familiar strain, " Whosoever 
Will May Come," and we lifted our American voices in 
praise, with their sweet French tones. Finally, we 
joined in singing together that dear old consecration 
hymn, " I am Thine, O, Lord," and left with thanksgiv- 
ing to God that there was a place, however small, in 
the great city, into which those who love Him and 
serve Him can go apart for awhile and rest. 

Miss de Broen, a young woman from Holland of 
wealth and leisure, while traveling for pleasure on the 
continent in 1871, arrived in Paris during the terrible 
days of the last Commune. She was so impressed by 
the horrors which she witnessed that she decided to re- 
main and help to alleviate the sufferings of the people in 
the Belleville district, the scene of the bloody butchery. 
There was begun at once that beautiful mission work 
that has made her name blessed in the hearts of thou- 
sands of human beings. For nearly twenty-five years 
she has stood an unwavering light in the darkness of 
atheistic gloom, carrying forward her vast undertaking 
with a trust that has never once abated. Terrible sick- 
ness followed in the wake of the siege. Miss de Broen 
established a medical hospital, where the sufferers could 
be administered to free of cost. After the Revolution 
ended it was continued for the poor in Belleville; but 
through all the years it had been resorted to by many 
from the heart of Paris, the average annual attendance 
being as great as 30,000. In supplying the bodily wants 



2i6 A Slaveholder's Daup;hter 

of these needy people, no opportunity had been neglected 
of bringing their sin-sick souls to the personal knowl- 
edge of the Divine Physician, who came to *' bear our 
infirmities." Out of this enterprise there had grown 
a training school for girls, sewing classes, day and night 
schools, mothers' meetings, a gospel mission hall, where 
regular Sunday services were held, beside Bible classes, 
prayer meetings and temperance meetings. A large 
proportion of Miss de Broen's time was spent in visit- 
ing the poor and sick, and distributing tracts and Bibles. 
I shall never forget the pathos in the voices of the men 
and the women, who stretched out their hands in an 
imploring way to her, saying, " If you please, madame," 
for the gospel leaflets she carried as we walked through 
the streets of Belleville. One day I dined with Miss 
de Broen and afterward spoke at her mission. She 
urged me to stay and lecture to the English-speaking 
people of Paris, offering me a home and a salary, but 
it was impossible to accept for the same reasons that 
prevented me from going around the world as a W. C. 
T. U. missionary. It v/as a wonderful opening fraught 
with gracious possibilities for the spread of the blessed 
doctrine of total abstinence and the gospel of our Lord. 
I pray God that some strong young woman who reads 
these words may feel impelled to go ; if not to Paris, to 
some other field of mission work for the Master. 

On my return from Paris several days were spent 
in London. After going out to Windsor Castle, 
Hampton Court and many other points of interest, I 
bade good-bye to the friends who had been with me 
on the continent and began a journey alone through 



On the Continent 217 

Ireland. Happy hours were spent in its leading cities, 
in riding over its picturesque mountains and in 
skimming over the surface of the beautiful lakes of 
Killarney. 

Leaving Ireland I went directly to Scotland. Edin- 
burgh, the historic, the romantic, was the goal of my 
heart's desire. At sunset that glorious old city was 
reached, with its ancient castle, Holyrood Palace, and 
Princes street, incomparable for beauty — bathed in 
light — its crags and rocks, its hills and stretch of sea. 

Of all the fascinating spots around Edinburgh, the 
most charming is the home of Sir Walter Scott. A 
short ride on the cars brings us to Melrose, where we 
take an omnibus for a four-mile jaunt through the 
country of Abbottsford, the baronial castle that was 
the pride of the heart of " the grand old man " of 
Scotland. 

Melrose Abbey was next explored and a trip made 
through the Trosachs, the region of the " Lady of 
the Lake," the most captivating section of all Scotland. 
Long coach drives were taken through the wildest, 
grandest parts of the Highlands, and two boat rides; 
one across Loch Katrine^ the other down Loch 
Lomond. 



CHAPTER XXII 



THE SORROW. 



Behold, the Lord our God hath shewed us His glory and 
His greatness, and we have heard His voice out of the midst 
of the fire ; we have seen this day that God doth talk with man 
and he liveth. — Deut. 5 : 24. 

The last vv^eek in August I sailed from Scotland for 
the United States, and after an uneventful voyage ar- 
rived in New York, spending some time there and on 
Staten Island, at the latter place addressing a public 
meeting. 

It was too early in the season to return with safety to 
the South, but a strong presentiment of coming sorrow 
so impressed itself upon me that it was impossible to 
shake it off, or to attempt to do any work, or to enter- 
tain any thought but that of going home. For the first 
time in my life a foreboding was yielded to and the last 
week of September found me on the plantation at Ver- 
non. I was shocked to find my brother, whom I had 
left with every assurance of returning health, fright- 
fully altered — stamped with the seal of death. Neither 
he, nor any one, seemed to realize the hopelessness of 
his condition, but a physician was in constant attend- 
ance. 

Although scarcely able to stand, he wandered about 

218 



The Sorrow 219 

the house restlessly, silent, his attenuated figure the 
shadow of his former fine physique, his face sad and un- 
smiling with a touch of the awfulness of eternity upon 
it. The next Sabbath he was unable to arise. As I 
waited by his bedside he looked at me calmly, his blue 
eyes full of the old love of his boyhood days, and 
actuated by the same unselfish spirit that had character- 
ized his life, he said apologetically, *' I am a little too 
weak to get up this morning, sister." Several days of 
great sufliering followed. At last the knowledge that 
death was close at hand came to him. He asked mother 
to pray. ** If life is given me I will show the world 
what it means to be a Christian man," he said. Oh! 
the heart-break of that hour ! In the holy watches of 
those days and nights surely he had an understanding 
with God, Who had said so lovingly through His Son, 
" Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy laden 
and I will give you rest." 

In one week's time, my brother died. There are 
moments when one cannot weep, nor speak, nor pray, — 
only be quiet before God. This was my first great sor- 
row. My faculties were dazed in the presence of death's 
awful mystery. How strange every one seemed ! How 
weird the trees, the flowers, the sunlight ! I was alone 
with our dead. He would soon be taken away from the 
old home to come back no more forever. Forever f O, 
God ! why should we be put in this sorrowing, unsatis- 
fying world to struggle and to suffer — to grope, and 
never to know? All the fought- for peace of years fled 
from me; all the trustfulness, the acceptance slipped 
away in the darkness and horror of those hours. 



220 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

Twice in my life there has been felt the personal pres- 
ence of God. Into that chamber of silence, shrouded 
in the desolation that only death can bring, He came to 
me ; softly, swiftly, clearly the footsteps of my Lord 
were heard ; suddenly the room was filled with His 
glory. Distinctly as if a human voice had spoken there 
fell upon my awakened sense the blessed words, '* Peace, 
be still ! " A holy calm descended upon me, a strange, 
sweet gladness. I went out rejoicing and praising God. 

After awhile our beloved was taken away. The 
mourning little company filed its way across the autumn 
fields, aglow with October sunshine, to our old family 
burial-ground, near by, in the heart of the deep, still 
woods. The long shadows flickered across the open 
grave, and the fading light fell in golden glints about 
it. My tears had all been shed, a divine, inexplicable 
joy possessed my being. I wanted to sing, to speak ! 
My soul was on wings, and thrilled with the triumphant 
refrain, " I know that my Redeemer liveth," while the 
divine undertone of Christ's assurance echoed back, " I 
am the resurrection, and the life : Whosoever believeth 
in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." " Who- 
soever ! " He believed. Thank God ! 

Two days after my brother's burial I was lying in 
the shadow of death with typhoid fever. The doctor 
looked at me with sad eyes full of apprehension. " You 
are very ill," he said, " but you will not die." " O, that 
is quite certain," was my instant reply. " My life work 
is not yet finished ; the call will not come for me to go 
until my destiny is completed." 

The fiery furnace of sickness and sorrow left me 



^^■^^R. 



^' 







'} 



.^:i 



fc^' 



r JV^CTB 



t^^B." 




John Wesley's Oak, Frederica, St. Simons, Georgia. See page 221. 



The Sorrow 221 

stronger in mind and more in love with God than in all 
my life before. In the days of convalescence my studies 
were resumed with eager vehemence. As soon as phys- 
ical strength returned, my public work was renewed 
and continued from March until November. I was 
radiantly happy, and my efforts were crowned with 
unusual success. Numbers of new friends came into my 
life, splendid audiences greeted me and many adherents 
were gained for the cause of righteousness to which my 
time and enthusiasm were devoted. 

At the close of the spring campaign in Mississippi a 
tour was made through Georgia where the privilege 
was granted of standing on ground rendered sacred by 
John Wesley in the days of his early ministry in Amer- 
ica. In going to Charlotte, North Carolina, a visit was 
paid to the gentle, sweet-faced widow of Stonewall 
Jackson. She had been a member of the white-ribbon 
army for years, and spoke with pride of her distin- 
guished husband's total abstinence principles, quoting 
his famous remark, *' I fear a glass of liquor more than 
the bullets of the enemy." 

Soon after leaving North Carolina, the historic cap- 
ital of the Southern Confederacy was seen for the first 
time. My hostess carried me to every place of interest 
in the charming old city, — the house that Jefferson 
Davis occupied while president of the seceded states, 
now used as a Confederate museum ; the residence of 
Robt. E. Lee, owned at present by the Virginia Histor- 
ical Society; St. Paul's Episcopal church, where these 
two famous leaders worshipped and whose pews, at the 
time, were draped with Confederate colors and dec- 



222 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

orated with laurel wreaths; St. John's chapel, built in 
1 77 1, where Patrick Henry made his immortal demand; 
the stone house in which Washington and Lafayette 
held their conference ; the elegant monuments erected m 
honor of the soldiers and sailors, General Lee and other 
heroes, and Holywood cemetery, where Monroe, Tyler, 
J. E. B. Stuart and Jefferson Davis lie buried. At this 
beautiful place of interment a striking memorial has 
been erected by the Ladies' Association in memory of 
the Confederate dead. It consists of a vast pile of 
stones laid in the form of an obelisk. At its completion 
it was found to be very difficult to put the cap-stone 
in place, — many trying and all failing. Finally it was 
announced by the state that freedom would be granted 
to any convict in the penitentiary who could adjust it. 
The opportunity was too precious to be lost and one of 
these unfortunates gained the double triumph. 

The Ex-Confederates were having a great reunion 
during my visit to Richmond. The city was filled with 
men dressed in gray uniforms, tattered and time-stained. 
Among these were some old negroes who had served 
throughout the civil war with their masters. Nothing 
more pathetic could be imagined than the happiness 
they evinced moving among the veterans and wearing 
the badges of the regiments in which they served as 
proudly as on the day in the 6o's when they marched 
away to the battle fields. 

Day and night the crowds filled the vast auditorium 
of the Exposition building which was decorated with 
war pictures and battle flags. There were glowing 



The Sorrow 223 

speeches by prominent Southern orators, interspersed 
with martial music. The old songs were sung that 
had brightened many a camp-fire ; the " rebel yell " was 
given, — at first short and sharp, but finally swelling into 
a deafening roar, the enthusiasm increasing with every 
demonstration. 

There was no exhibition of bitterness on any occasion. 
The address of the Northern Soldier received an 
ovation. There was deathless loyalty in every South- 
erners' heart to the spirit under which the war 
had been fought but with it was an unquestioning 
allegiance to the Union. The stars and stripes were 
dearer to them, even in that hour of tender reminis- 
cence, than their own conquered banners. I wept 
with the old warriors in memory of their *' Lost Cause ; " 
but there was profound thankfulness in my heart that 
the Civil War ended as it did ; that fraternity was re- 
stored; that no longer was there a North and a 
South but an undivided country; a united purpose, 
under one flag, to work out our sublime destiny — the 
development for the world of the principles of self- 
government. 

Since then, the war between the United States and 
Spain has been fought. The North and the South 
have stood shoulder to shoulder in the movement at El 
Caney, in the furious charge up the hill of San Juan, 
in the sinking of the Spanish fleet at Santiago and in 
the immortal victory at Manila. Heroes of both 
sections perished together on the Maine, and lie buried 
side by side in the trenches of Cuba and the Philip- 



224 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

pines. The forces of fraternity have culminated in the 
Spanish- American war; but in all the years since Lee 
surrendered his sword to Grant at Appomattox 
numerous agencies have been at work to effect the 
solidity of the American people and to unify the great 
Republic. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

THE FAR WEST AND ALASKA 

And who commanded (and the silence came), 
Here let the billows stiffen and have rest ! 
God ! let the torrents, like a shout of nations, 
Answer, and let the ice-plains echo, God ! 

—Coleridge. 

After visiting the University of Virginia and the 
famous home of Thomas Jefferson, ** Monticello," at 
Charlottesville, Virginia, the remainder of the summer 
was spent at Mountain Lake Park, Maryland, Old 
Orchard Beach, Maine, where W. C. T. U. work was 
done, and on the coast of Narragansett Bay, near New- 
port. Lecture engagements were filled in the fall of 
1896 in the state of New York, where pleasant visits 
were made to the United States Military Academy, at 
West Point, Vassar College, at Poughkeepsie, and many- 
delightful trips up and down the Hudson were enjoyed. 
Addresses were made in New Jersey and in all the New 
England states except Vermont. Everyv^^here I was 
received with unlimited cordiality, and was the subject 
of as much generous hospitality and loving kindness as 
was ever lavished upon me in the South. 

The following spring a lecturing and organizing tour 
was begun in March, that continued until the middle 
of December, through the far West. Never until this 

225 



226 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

journey had I realized the immensity of the distances 
in this great country of ours. With the dawn of the 
morning following my leave taking from Forth Worth, 
Texas, I found myself skirting the great American 
desert traveling up the Pecos Valley in New Mexico. 
The country to El Paso is an unchangeable, sandy val- 
ley with mountain ranges on either side, bare and dusty 
looking. Not a human habitation is in sight, except 
wagwams huddled on the glowing desert at frightful 
distances from each settlement. These were occupied 
by Indians. Here, as elsewhere in this region, nothing 
is seen growing except the mesquite bushes, Spanish 
daggers, and numerous varieties of cactus. 

As soon as I got to El Paso I entered a street car 
to pay a visit to the old Mexican town, Juarez, which 
is just across the Rio Grande, with the purpose of see- 
ing the ancient church Guadaloupe, which dates from 
1549. It was my plan to make a missionary temper- 
ance tour through Mexico on my return in December, 
but afterward I concluded to defer the journey until 
more time was at my command. 

On leaving El Paso the train swept through the heart 
of the desert with its blinding glories, mammoth cacti 
with crimson blossoms, a few lonely birds beating their 
wings in the air, and the inevitable line of mountains 
about us. It seemed like a foretaste of heaven to glide 
in from the arid plains of Arizona to the cool, green 
regions of California, with its fields of barley and wheat, 
orchards of various fruits, and mountains softened with 
grass and shrubs — all bathed in evening light with the 



The Far West and Alaska 227 

peculiar glow in it that rests on the hills and valleys of 
Italy. 

Soon after my arrival in San Francisco, accompanied 
by an ensign from the Salvation Army and a Christian 
lady friend, I went down one night into the depths of 
Chinatown. This is a section of San Francisco that is 
inhabited wholly by the Chinese, who, true to their in- 
stincts, have packed themselves into every available 
niche. Within ten blocks 20,000 of these Mongolians 
are found — human beings of every variety wedged in 
with poultry and animals, flesh and vegetables. We 
went into the opium dives, entering dark, forbidding, 
rambling old houses, and after meandering around in 
shadowy courts and murky passages arrived at tiny 
rooms full of rags and filth and fumes, and saw 
stretched out on loathsome cots specimens of humanity 
that had once been called men, but at present looked 
more like spirits from Hades ; bodies thin and scrawny, 
the yellow skin like parchment drawn over the grinning 
bones ; small, sleepy almond eyes glistening under 
shaggy brows that beetled from bare, knotty foreheads ; 
a mass of blue-black hair coiled at the back of the head ; 
all — bones, skin, eyes and hair piled up in the middle of 
the bed — smoking. A flickering candle was standing on 
a little table close by the couch. Beside the light was 
a sm.all jar containing a dark, gummy substance, which 
we soon discovered to be opium. As we entered one of 
these dens the smoker grunted a recognition and closed 
his eyes. In his hand he held a long-stemmed pipe, with 
the mouth-piece glued between his lips. Suddenly he 
sat up, and, leaning towards the table, he took a small 



228 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

wiry instrument, and, digging up a speck of opium from 
the jar, he punched it into his pipe, the opening of 
which was at the end of the bowl, and holding it over 
the flames sucked the stem vigorously until the opium 
puffed and fizzed. Two or three whiffs, and all was 
over. At once the smoker repeated the operation, then 
again and again, looking at us appealingly at the end of 
each performance for a piece of money. We endured 
the sight of the degradation as long as we could, then 
walked away filled with disgust. 

After leaving the opium dens we went to the Chinese 
theatre. It was filled to overflowing. On the main 
floor were men, all sitting on the back of the seats, and 
each fellow smoking like a steam engine. The air was 
so full of the fumes as to almost suffocate one and 
so cloudy as to obscure the vision. Penned off in the 
boxes were the women. As soon as we entered we were 
met by an usher and marched up, not to a reserved seat, 
but on the stage, in the midst of the actors. In aston- 
ishment there we sat, and gazed with awe upon the hor- 
rible creatures dressed to resemble nothing on earth nor 
" in the waters under the earth." Painted faces and 
naked chests decorated with skins and tinsel, marching 
to and fro beating pans and drums, and screeching, 
whooping and dancing. In the midst of the pandemo- 
nium we sat and gazed, and the smoking Chinamen in 
the audience sat and gazed at us. It was a midsummer 
night's horror. 

In walking through the uncertain streets in the flicker 
of the faintly glimmering lights we saw poor little 
Chinese women dressed in gaudy clothes, with rouged 



The Far West and Alaska 229 

cheeks, hurrying by, and others of their unfortunate 
sisters looking from curtained windows down upon the 
surging crowd of men upon the streets below. Poor 
little sparrows ! God pity them ! 

From the theatre we went to the joss house — the 
Chinese place of worship. It is a large building with 
an up-stairs balcony. The furnishings are rich. Idols, 
looking like monsters, are standing about, and there 
are heavy curtains, and inscriptions in gold, altars tow- 
ering nearly to the ceiling, and great basins where the 
ashes are caught that fall from burning the sacred 
sticks. There was the " holy of holies " that the foot of 
a Christian is not allowed to enter. 

We visited the handsome stores and watched with 
amusement the lordly air and stately tread of the 
wealthy merchants as they walked up and down their 
establishments bartering away their costly wares. 
While standing in one of these stores a little Chinese 
boy six years old came in and asked his father a ques- 
tion; then followed an animated conversation. The 
merchant, turning to us, said : " My little son. He 
likee Mellican shoes. I give him a pair, but he will not 
carry paper bundles on the street. He do not think it 
high-toned. " It is hard to Americanize the Chinaman. 
In spite of missions and direct contact with our civiliza- 
tion, he retains his oriental dress and heathenish cus- 
toms. 

My first view of the Pacific was gained at Inspiration 
Point, a lofty eminence to the west of San Francisco 
overlooking the Golden Gate, the beautiful bay and the 
mountains. The trip from San Francisco to Portland 



230 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

takes one through the delightful Shasta region. The 
scenery is magnificent every step of the way as far 
north as Ashland — an almost unbroken stretch of 
mountainous country that grows in grandeur until the 
border line of California and Oregon is passed. Mt. 
Shasta stands out like a mighty giant for hundreds 
of miles, robed in snow ; cold, changeless, full of ma- 
jesty and mystery. From Portland I sailed down the 
Columbia river nearly to its mouth, gaining glimpses of 
Mt. Hood and Mt. Rainier along the route. 

Passing from Oregon, I went into Washington, visit- 
ing first the interesting little city of Vancouver, and 
after a short, delightful stay at the capital, made a boat 
trip on Puget Sound to Tacoma. 

During the first week of July, 1897, I took passage on 
the elegant steamship, Queen, departing for Alaska. 
Going from Seattle to Sitka is like sailing up a wide, 
smooth river, with all the joys of a sea voyage without 
any of its discomforts. On either side is an unbroken 
stretch of magnificent scenery that transcends all de- 
scription. Every view is full of exquisite beauty, or re- 
plete witk grandeur. The trip to Alaska is the summer 
tour par excellence, sought by tourists from all parts of 
the world, and pronounced by them to be incomparable. 

To convey an adequate conception of the mammoth 
size of Alaska, it is said that if one were to stand 
twenty miles to the westward of San Francisco, he 
would be just half-way in the possessions of the Fed- 
eral government. Alaska is larger than all the states 
that would be included in a line drawn east from Chi- 



The Far West and Alaska 231 

cago to the Atlantic, and south as far as the Gulf of 
Mexico. 

The rivers of Alaska are among the longest, and it 
has the highest mountains, the largest glaciers, the most 
numerous bays, straits, sounds and channels, and the 
richest gold and silver mines on two continents. The 
wonderful revelations among all the other wonders of 
this wonder-land are the glaciers. On the trip to 
Sitka the first of these of any importance that is passed 
is the Patterson. After that comes the Davidson, then 
the Windome, and at last the Muir, that marvelous 
inland sea more than one hundred fathoms deep, which 
is renowned as one of the most astonishing develop- 
ments in the natural world. There are said to be ten 
other glaciers in Alaska as large as the Muir, one twice 
as large, besides many small ones. Now for the Muir 
itself. Imagine, facing a body of placid water, great 
colonnades of ice forming a crescent tv/o miles in 
length, 250 feet high at the centre, and sloping gently 
down at either end to 150 feet. Imagine this frozen 
mass fashioned in the most fairy-like forms and dream- 
creations — chiseled grottoes, turreted castles, Milan 
cathedrals, Spanish Alhambras, all breaking into each 
other with a bewitching haphazardness. Imagine the 
color of each a deep, cerulean blue, intensely so in the 
interior and paling towards the outward edges, and 
over this azure, silken sheen, a white lace veil, spider- 
wrought in its delicacy, thrown like a snowy cover. 
Imagine the light of the sun upon it, and a thousand 
tints and glints and shadows that transform and glorify 
the whole into a shimmering hill-chain of fire-hearted 



232 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

opals. Imagine a dying glacier to the left which looks 
like a mighty river caught in its downward career, and 
held cold and stiff in the hand of death. Imagine ice 
fields beyond, stretching back into the interior over 
thirty miles, further than the eye can reach, grim and 
awful in their calmness. Imagine mountains on all 
sides rearing their shining crests 6,000 feet in air. 
Imagine Glacier Bay at their feet clothed in silvery 
mist, on whose surface float sky-hued icebergs. 
Imagine brooding over all a deep silence, restful and 
unbroken as that in the heavenly spheres. Imagine 
all this, and you have the Muir as it stands to-day. 

On the day of our arrival in Sitka the Hon. John G. 
Brady received his " credentials " ratifying his appoint- 
ment by President McKinley as governor of the vast 
territory of Alaska. 

Before making the journey to Alaska Mrs. Brady 
had written that she would be my hostess while I was 
in Sitka. As soon as the steamer anchored an old 
Indian guide was employed to conduct me to the home 
of Mrs. Brady. After passing through several streets 
of the queer little town, and along the water-front of 
a dirty Indian village, we reached a modern residence 
which my heretofore silent companion indicated by 
certain grunts and signs to be my destination. Mrs. 
Brady greeted me cordially. On learning that my stay 
in Sitka would be but for a few hours, she suggested 
that we go from house to house, to tell the people of 
my mission in order to secure an audience, and hold 
a meeting that evening. 

Acting upon her suggestion, we went from one end 



The Far West and Alaska 233 

of the town to the other, — to the newspaper office, the 
home of the Episcopal bishop, the Presbyterian mission, 
the dwelHngs of the Russians, everywhere, explaining 
the work of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union 
and urging attendance at the evening service. At nine 
o'clock, while light was still in the heavens, we went 
to the little Presbyterian church and I spoke to the 
people assembled and organized a W. C. T. U. — 
almost under the pole-star. That night Governor and 
Mrs. Brady accompanied me to the Queen, and early 
next morning the ship moved away from Sitka. 

On returning to Tacoma we found the city in a blaze 
of excitement over the discovery of the Klondike gold 
fields, whose fabulous riches have since lured so many 
to fortune or to doom. 

My travels and lecture work continued through east- 
ern Oregon and Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyo- 
ming, Utah and Colorado. I rested from my labors for 
several days in Yellowstone Park, whose wonders 
would fill a volume, then continued farther westward, 
stopping en route in Nevada and again spending some 
time in Southern California and, on my way home, 
speaking in Arizona, Texas, New Mexico and Louisi- 
ana. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



'^THE LATTER DAY SAINTS 



The people of the United States are more sensible of the 
disgrace of Mormonism than of its danger. The civilized 
world wonders that such a hideous caricature of the Christian 
religion should have appeared in this most enlightened land. — 
JosiAH Strong. 

There is no place in the Union as unique in every 
particular as Salt Lake City. It is made so by a peculiar 
people — the Mormons — whose strange religious faith 
sets them apart from all the rest of the world. Driven 
from the states on account of their repugnant doctrines, 
they found a refuge in the desert of Utah, which they 
have transformed into a modern garden of Hesperides. 
The city sits at the base of the Wasatch Mountains, 
the breath from whose cool summits invigorates and 
strengthens. The streets are very broad and smooth, 
shaded by numerous trees and rendered attractive by 
handsome homes and business blocks. Temple Square 
is the centre of religious life, and the leading object of 
the admiration of both Mormon and Gentile. Here are 
found three magnificent structures. First and always 
the Temple, that wonder of architectural beauty and 
splendor. It was made of pure white granite taken 
from a cafion in Utah. It was forty years in process 
of erection, and cost almost $6,000,000. With the ex- 

234 



The Latter Day Saints 235 

ception of the Roman Catholic cathedral in New York, 
it is the most superb house of worship in America. The 
Tabernacle is a mammoth building almost circular in 
shape, and having the appearance of a gigantic turtle 
upon the outer side. Its utmost seating capacity is said 
to be eleven thousand, the great gallery holding nearly 
as many as the main floor. The wood-work of the 
superb organ came from the forests of Utah. 
The choir, composed of five-hundred voices, is wholly 
voluntary. The acoustic properties of the building are 
exceedingly rare. 

While in Salt Lake City I addressed an audience in 
the Tabernacle. One of the wives of Brigham Young, 
a Mormon woman doctor, some members of the W. C. 
T. U. and several officials of the Mormon church occu- 
pied seats on the terraced platform. B. H. Roberts, the 
polygamous Mormon, whose admission to Congress 
was refused, offered prayer, and other ecclesiastics per- 
formed different roles. It was a strange and interesting 
experience. 

The Assembly Hall is an elegant building, like an 
opera house upon the inner side. These three structures 
are within one enclosure ; a huge wall shuts them out 
from the busy street, and around the Temple is a strong 
iron fence, beyond which the foot of a Gentile is not 
allowed to enter. None but the saints go into the sacred 
precincts. * During the years that the Temple was 
being built the priests, in order to keep up the courage 
of the Mor mons and stimulate them to greater zeal and 

* The facts stated in this chapter were obtained from lead- 
ing Gentiles and Mormons in Salt Lake City. 



236 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

activity in raising money for its completion, told them 
that as soon as the Temple was finished the Lord would 
come and occupy a room in it. When the last touches 
had been given, and the Temple stood an assured real- 
ity, and the Lord did not come, Elder Woodruff, presi- 
dent of the State Church, said he had a revelation frorn 
God that He was offended because the Gentiles had been 
allowed to gain a foothold in Utah, and that Christ 
would not appear. Further, that the wrath of God 
could be appeased only by unceasing work to evangelize 
the world. They are now sending out their mission- 
aries by the hundreds ; some of them boys not out of 
their teens. By this means, and the thorough organiza- 
tion of the church in every branch, Mormonism is 
growing tremendously. It cannot be realized or ap- 
preciated by those who are far removed from its centre, 
or who have never been given an object-lesson of its 
strength. 

While I was in Salt Lake City the Annual Conference 
of the Mormons was held. Men and women poured 
into the Tabernacle day after day from the most remote 
corners of Utah and adjoining states. Some conception 
of the vastness of the movement was gained when I saw 
that great auditorium packed from door to door at a 
morning business session. Imagine what it would be at 
an evening meeting. At this conference the elders and 
bishops and other high church dignitaries occupied the 
three rows of seats that stand one above the other in a 
semi-circle facing the main body of the edifice. With- 
out introduction one man after another arose and ad- 
dressed the people. At the close of each harangue the 



The Latter Day Saints 237 

speaker said : " In the name of Jesus Christ, amen ! " 
and all the audience answered, *' Amen." During this 
especial conference the burden of each orator's effort 
^^-as to inveigh against the priesthood being criticized 
by the church members. " When that begins," said one 
mighty in authority, " then comes darkness and death 
to Mormonism." Their leading thought, however, was 
that the revelations of God to a people must be given 
by human agencies ; and, secondly, these agencies must 
be beyond all cavil. Elder Merrill said, " The Bible is 
good, and the Book of Mormon is good, but give me the 
living oracles of the church." Apostle Taylor then took 
up the song, beginning with Noah and going on down to 
Joseph Smith, to prove that the written Word was in- 
sufficient through which God could reveal himself to 
the world. " Other churches have the Word given by 
men ; ours is given by direct revelation. Joseph Smith 
had this revelation, and it has been given to us ever 
since ! " cried one of the enthusiasts. 

The Mormon church is supported by tithes, each man 
and woman contributing a certain portion of their in- 
come or earnings, and the church has become very rich 
through it. Another mode of increasing the treasury 
is by baptisms for the dead. There are priests who are 
always officiating in the Temple, and thousands of bap- 
tisms are performed every day. Some persons are bap- 
tized hundreds of times. At each baptism a sum of 
money is paid for the ceremony, and the issuance, by 
degrees, of the tormented soul from hell assured. 

The Mormons are devoted pleasure-loving people, 
and all their pursuits in that line are sanctioned by the 



238 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

church. Their dances are always opened with prayer, 
the bishop usually officiating on the occasion. The 
church and state are closely united in Mormonism. No 
man runs for a political office who is in any way con- 
nected with the machinery of the church, unless the 
church approves. In Salt Lake City the functionaries 
of Mormonism have their offices in a large building in 
the business section of the town, and here, too, are 
found the tithe-houses. For years the Mormons were 
not regarded as Christians by the outside world. They 
speak of this bitterly. Christ is recognized prominently 
in their worship, but usually upon the same basis as 
Joseph Smith. The following incident will explain vol- 
umes. A little Mormon girl, returning from Sunday- 
school one Sabbath day, was accosted by a Gentile lady, 
and the ensuing conversation occurred : " Do you like to 
go to Sunday-school, dearie ? " 

" Yes, ma'am." 

" What have you been studying lately ? " 

'* I have just been learning about Moses and Jesus 
Christ. Now we are going to study about Joseph 
Smith." 

The whole structure of Mormonism was conceived of 
and carried into execution by shrewd, cunning men. 
Joseph Smith is canonized among the Mormons, and 
his fame sounded through successive generations as a 
prophet from God. Brigham Young's statue occupies 
a conspicuous position in the leading street of Salt Lake 
City, and his praises are sung by the Latter Day Saints. 
His process of hoodwinking is gigantic. At one time, 
it is said, he issued a manifesto that he had received 



The Latter Day Saints 239 

a revelation from God to the effect that only a certain 
sort of tree should be planted by the Mormons in Utah, 
and he had these trees in his nursery. At once all the 
faithful cut down their trees and ordered others from 
President Young. When the new trees were three 
years old he had another revelation that God was again 
displeased with the variety, and desired a different kind. 
Once more the trees were all cut down, and a sort en- 
tirely unlike the others ordered from Brigham Young's 
nursery. This occurred three times, the orders all being 
filled from the same source. He reaped a goodly har- 
vest from the credulity of the people. A second story 
similar to this is told of the president. When the saints 
had accumulated thousands of heads of hogs, Brigham 
Young said it was declared to him in a revelation from 
God that no swine should be used by the Mormons ; but 
Brigham, in the generosity of his soul, sorry to have 
his brethren suffer the loss, bought up all the hogs and 
sold them at a fabulous price to the emigrants passing 
through Utah on their way to the far West. In addi- 
tion to all these statesman-like manoeuvers, Brigham 
Young added to his wealth by seven breweries. 

When the law was enforced abolishing polygamy 
there were 1500 Mormons in jail at one time in Salt 
Lake City, both men and women. If a child were born 
in a polygamous marriage, but made its advent in an- 
other state, it and its parents were free if the infant was 
kept away from Utah for three years. This was called 
" outlawing a child." In the first stages of the Edmunds- 
Tucker enforcing act many hundreds of children were 
" outlawed," but since Utah has gained statehood 



240 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

polygamy is practised more openly by those who had 
contracted plural marriages in the earlier years of the 
movement. 

It had been the wonder of my life how any woman 
could enter a polygamous marriage. When I arrived 
in Salt Lake City and met some of the leading women of 
the church of the Latter Day Saints and talked with 
them about their religion and home affairs, I realized 
the motive power that had induced them to be wedded to 
men who either had other wives or would take unto 
themselves others. The majority of the women of the 
older set were converted to Mormonism in their early 
years. Marriage and motherhood were held up as 
requisites by which to attain unto eternal life, and the 
greater sacrifices a woman makes in these lines the 
greater will be her exaltation after death. 

They entered polygamy from an intense religious en- 
thusiasm, actuated by the same promptings that lead a 
nun into the convent or a. martyr to the stake. This 
principle is still alive in the hearts of the more consci- 
entious Mormon women ; but as the years have gone 
by and the power of the church increased, of course 
there have been thousands of women who entered 
polygamous marriages from baser motives. I expected 
to find a dull, groveling lot of people in whom the an- 
imal was ever to the front. My amazement was un- 
bounded as woman after woman was introduced who 
was the very acme of refinement, intelligence and often 
of beauty. 

One of the foremost leaders of thought among the 
Mormon women edits a paper in Salt Lake City and is 



The Latter Day Saints 241 

a devoted club woman. She has represented the women 
of Utah in the National Council of Women and ap- 
peared before congressional committees to secure meas- 
ures for the advancement of her people. She was edu- 
cated in Massachusetts, and when in her teens she 
accepted the Mormon faith and crossed the plains with 
other pioneers in the days of the noted exodus. Like 
any other business personage, she has her office in the 
city and is as full of affairs as the most energetic man 
in the blocks about her. 

At a reception given to me by Mormon women in a 
Mormon woman's home in Salt Lake City, I met typical 
Mormon women of every degree. The house in which 
the reception was held is an elegant structure with 
stained glass windows and rich furniture ; every curtain 
and carpet and picture in exquisite harmony. The 
hostess was a woman of wide culture ; she had traveled 
extensively in this country and abroad and was the very 
essence of high-bred grace and polished manner. Her 
five daughters, dressed in perfect taste, and having in- 
herited their mother's gentleness and attractiveness, 
helped to do the honors of the occasion most beautifully. 
On leaving the reception, I said to a Mormon woman 
who accompanied me : 

" You don't mean to tell me that our hostess is one 
of many wives of some man, do you ? " 

" Oh, yes ! " was the quick, cheerful reply. " She is 
the second wife. The first lives not far from her on an 
adjoining street." 

Among other noted Mormon women in Salt Lake 
City, are Dr. Martha Hughes Cannon, who vv^as elected 



242 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

to the Senate of Utah, a practising physician, and Mrs. 
Zina D. Young, one of the nineteen wives of Brigham 
Young. The latter is a vivacious old lady, near three 
score and ten years of age. She is called " aunt Zinie " 
— " aunt " being a title of love and respect among 
the Latter Day Saints, just the same as that we honor 
the older negro women in the South. In the home 
of Mrs. Zina D. Young I was shown the celebrated 
painting of ** Joseph, the Prophet," which hangs in a 
room filled with portraits of Brigham Young and other 
apostles and evangelists of the Mormon church. The 
home of " aunt Zinie " is an unpretentious cottage sit- 
uated on a quiet street. 

Prominent objects of Salt Lake City, scarcely second 
in interest to the Temple and Tabernacle, are the dwell- 
ings of Brigham Young called '' Bee-hive " and '' Lion- 
House," where he kept his many wives, and the palace 
of Amelia, his favorite wife, that stands on the opposite 
side of the street. The latter has been confiscated since 
the abolition of polygamy, and " Bee-hive " and " Lion- 
House " have also passed into other hands, but it is 
imderstood that the wives who are still living are well 
provided for, as President Brigham Young left a large 
fortune. The younger Mormon men and women do not 
usually enter into polygamous marriages, but, it is said, 
on incontrovertible authority, that polygamy is still 
practised by the older people who had contracted plural 
marriages before the Edmunds-Tucker law went into 
effect. Numbers of Mormon women are rearing large 
families of children without any visible husbands, not 
only in Salt Lake City but in states adjoining Utah ; and 



The Latter Day Saints 243 

these women are held in high repute among the Mor- 
mons, thus showing that they are regarded as legally 
wedded. 

When I was going to Salt Lake City the train stopped 
at a wayside station for supper. A pretty girl about 
thirteen years of age was selling glasses of milk from 
a large tin bucket that she carried on her arm. She had 
a winsome face and I asked : " Are you a little Mormon 
girl ? " ** Yes," was the demure reply. " Have you 
many brothers and sisters?" ''Quite a number." 
'' How many wives has your father ? " " Two." " Does 
he live with both?" "Yes." "Which is your 
mother?" "The first." "Do you like the other?" 
" Yes, of course ! why shouldn't I ? " she demanded with 
blazing eyes, and with a disdainful snap of her bucket- 
top she marched off. Poor little thing! She had the 
fire and loyalty of the usual Mormon woman, and of 
every other woman who believes in a cause whether 
right or wrong and has to suffer for it. 

The wonder and glory of Utah is Great Salt Lake. 
This marvel in nature " covers an area of 2300 square 
miles." Its depth is seldom greater than twenty feet, 
but at the deepest point it is sixty feet. Its waters are 
as clear as crystal, and the sand at the bottom, which 
is plainly seen, is a grayish white. There are several 
islands in Great Salt Lake, and the mountains are round 
about it. A storm upon it, or a sunset, is a sight cal- 
culated to fill one with awe and admiration. At a point 
upon the outer edges, where the desert joins the lake, 
the waters have been gradually cut off; the dry air 
quickly evaporates the moisture, leaving shining beds 



244 ^ Slaveholder's Daughter 

of salt glistening in the light. Heavy rollers drawn 
by horses are passed over these; then the crystalline 
mass is shoveled up, put into sacks, and placed on the 
cars, which run close to the fields of salt, and shipped 
to the outside world. 

Saltair is the name of a mammoth bath-house built 
out in the waters of Salt Lake. To this huge pavilion 
thousands resort every summer to enjoy the exhilarat- 
ing effects of a float on Salt Lake. " Going down into 
the water " here can hardly be called a bath, as the 
water is so densely impregnated with salt that one's 
body is borne up lightly like a cork ; and if the head and 
feet are not submerged, can glide over the face of the 
sea like a fleck of down. The finest saloon in Utah is 
at Saltair. It is run by leading Mormons. Up to 
twenty-eight years ago the Latter Day Saints were un- 
disturbed in their desert retreat, but since the mining 
interests have grown so important in Utah, the state 
has become settled by hordes of Gentiles until now, 
really, the population and appearance of the country is 
very much like other localities, except that, underneath 
the surface, the Mormons still have their hold upon 
material prosperity and religious power. 



CHAPTER XXV 

IN COLORADO 

For looking backward through the year, 
Along the path my feet have pressed, 

I see sweet places everywhere, — 
Sweet places where my soul had rest. 

— Phoebe Gary. 

While in Salt Lake City I spoke at several meet- 
ings held in the interest of the temperance cause and 
lectured once on Alaska. The state convention of the 
Woman's Christian Temperance Union was in session 
a part of the time. Some of the greatest audiences that 
it has been my pleasure to address, greeted me in the 
West. Those in certain portions of California, Utah, 
and Colorado being particularly gratifying. One of 
the most interesting places which I visited in Colorado 
was Cripple Creek, the famous mining camp. The 
whole country in the gold belt surrounding the place 
presents a most novel and engaging appearance to a 
stranger. Numberless prospects cover the face of the 
hills. A " prospect " is a venture at mining, looking 
for paying ore. If not found in sufficient quantities to 
meet and go above all expense of operation, the venture 
remains forever a prospect. If the precious metals in 
paying quantities are found, it is called a " mine." The 

245 



246 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

population of the mining district of Cripple Creek was 
at that time estimated at 40,000. In the town itself it 
had reached the large number of 20,000. It is wonder- 
ful how human beings flock to these rich mining camps ; 
how they suffer privations and work like galley-slaves 
for gold. I found educated men at Cripple Creek delv- 
ing in the mines, while their wives cooked and did every 
kind of hard work, living in two-room huts in the back 
yards of persons who were equally cramped and equally 
hard-worked. The open saloons, gambling dens and 
dance-houses flourish with a brazen effrontery not seen 
in older haunts of civilization. At the '' Branch," the 
Monte Carlo of Cripple Creek, gambling is carried on 
with a high hand. The rooms are magnificently fur- 
nished ; soft velvet carpets cover the floors, and elegant 
oil paintings of the most immoral subjects decorate the 
walls. Here the men flock to scatter their hard-earned 
dollars at faro, poker, etc., while the " Branch " pro- 
prietor, loaded with diamonds, looks on complacently. 
In this institution there is a palace saloon in which there 
is a bar of heavily carved oak with beaten brass orna- 
mentations, costing nothing less than $20,000. In other 
drinking establishments similar furnishings are found, 
and musicians are stationed near the door to beguile the 
wayfarer into their depths by bewitching strains of ex- 
quisite melody. The miners go to the " Branch " to get 
their checks cashed. In one day the amounts rise as 
high as $12,600. Vice of a lower order than drinking 
and gambling stalks unrebuked through the streets of 
Cripple Creek, in the glare of daylight as well as in the 
shades of night. 



In Colorado 247 

On my arrival at the mining camp an after- 
noon meeting was held with some W. C. T. U. 
women. It was said that all the churches in the 
place were either too small to accommodate the de- 
sired audience or were occupied with protracted 
services ; so in order to reach the crowd the 
alternative was to go on the streets at night, and to talk 
in the open air. That evening at 8 o'clock, accompanied 
by the president of the local society, I stood on the 
corner of a crowded thoroughfare and spoke to hun- 
dreds of people thronging the way. 

At the close of the meeting, reinforced by another 
friend, we visited the saloons, the dance-halls and the 
most prominent gambling dens. In the rear of one of 
the grog-shops were found two young men, one frail 
and pallid, seated at a piano ; the other leaning against 
a whiskey barrel. They were both singing a pathetic 
melody, the chorus ending with, " I am an outcast, a 
wanderer; I am far from home to-night." We stopped 
to listen. Going over the words a second time the boy- 
pianist looked at us unsmilingly and said, " That means 
me ! " As we walked down the sin-cursed street, for 
blocks the plaintive refrain followed us on the summer 
air, " I am an outcast, a wanderer." Doubtless hun- 
dreds of hearts in Cripple Creek responded to the plaint. 
A short distance beyond Colorado Springs, is found 
South Cheyenne Caiion, noted for its wonderful scenery 
and as the place where Helen Hunt Jackson desired her 
body to be buried. The canon is short, but stupendous. 
Ponderous granite mountains come so near together 
that on first sight it seems impossible that a roadway 



248 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

could ever be forged between them. It looks as if a 
mighty hand had pried the boulders apart, and that 
they may at any time close up their ranks again. In 
the grandest part of the canon are found Seven Falls 
that present a scene full of entrancing loveliness. The 
granite has been smoothly terraced by mother nature 
in seven different places in a great gorge, and over these 
surge volumes of water clear as crystal. At this point 
the carriage is abandoned and, climbing up several 
flights of steps hundreds of feet high, the brow of a 
mountain is gained and at once commences a search for 
the sacred spot where the body of that sweet singer and 
romance writer, Helen Hunt Jackson, was laid to rest. 
It is found on the slope overlooking the yawning clefts 
in the canon and in close proximity to the Seven Falls, 
— a cool, peaceful nook under the sighing pines. A 
mass of stones now lie on the empty grave, and between 
these are wedged numerous cards of visitors who de- 
sired to let the hawks and eagles and mountain-grasses 
knovv that their majesties had called. 

Helen Hunt Jackson died in San Francisco. In her 
last days she requested that she be buried in South 
Cheyenne Cafion. As soon as was practicable, her hus- 
band had her body brought from the city, where it was 
laid temporarily, and carried over the mountain heights 
by a carriage-road to her favorite place, where she had 
often sat and read and written far removed from the 
din and strife of the outside world. Only a few friends 
formed the mournful party as it filed its way through 
the mountain fastnesses with its precious burden to the 
abiding place that had been chosen above all on earth 



In Colorado 249 

in which to wait for the resurrection morn. The burial- 
ground was so unusual that it attracted hordes of visit- 
ors, who began to make it a rendezvous for picnics and 
headquarters for advertisements. The notoriety and 
accompanying desecration grew so offensive to Mr. 
Jackson that he had his wife's remains removed to the 
cemetery at Colorado Springs, and the grave marked by 
a modest headstone. Helen Hunt Jackson will linger 
forever in the memory of mankind as the friend of the 
Indian, — " Romona " and *' A Century of Dishonor " 
immortalizing her as the strongest advocate for that un- 
fortunate race known in the literary or philanthropic 
world. 

After the long absence of almost nine months, dur- 
ing which I traveled thousands of miles and had num- 
berless strange experiences, going back to my blessed 
old plantation home was looked forward to with greater 
eagerness than in all my life before, especially as I came 
with health fully restored. A hearty welcome awaited 
me as always from mother and father, who were ever 
in such perfect accord and sympathy with my public 
work. Oh! the joy, the abandon, the peace, the inde- 
scribable sweetness in onts.owji home such as is found 
nowhere else on earth ! 

At mine there is rest of body and soul for 
me. Everything is kept quiet. Mother's solicitude 
goes so far as to prompt her to station little 
negroes at strategic points about the yard to pre- 
vent the roosters from coming within hearing dis- 
tance of my windows, fearing their crowing may 
disturb me. In the afternoons, when my usual walk is 



250 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

taken over the hills and through the beautiful woods, a 
delegation of eight or twelve young black boys and girls 
accompanies me. They usually return laden with flowers 
and grasses and always expect remuneration of some 
sort; so I have them stand in line and rejoice their 
hearts by filling their hands with sugar. Off the;^ 
scamper, — eating as they go. At Christmas, the custom 
of all the negroes on the plantation is to rush into the 
*' white folks' " house one by one or in groups and cry, 
" Chris'mus giff ! I done cotch you fust. " Every one 
expects a present of some sort, if nothing more than a 
bit of fruit or a stick of candy ; but there mttst be some- 
thing, in order to prevent the deepest disappointment. 
In ante-bellum days each was remembered generously ; 
every old ex-slave still expects it and they have handed 
down this expectation to their descendants. 

Just after supper, in the spring and summer, father 
and I sit on the front gallery and talk as freely and con- 
fidentially as in my young girlhood. In winter, after 
the evening meal, mother reads to me for two hours. 
On these visits home, I hug the fleeting hours to my 
soul ; so full are they of happiness and satisfaction. The 
pain of parting from my dear ones has never grown less 
poignant. While life lasts I cannot forget the picture 
which is repeated at each of my departures. The wait- 
ing vehicle at the front gate, the horse held by some old 
negro servant. Father suffering visibly, but smiling 
bravely, saying, " God bless you, daughter, and bring 
you back in safety to us." Mother folding me to her 
heart and sobbing, " Good-bye, darling ! Good-bye, my 
precious one." My youngest brother walking briskly 



In Colorado 251 

up and exclaiming, " Do come on, sister ! You will 
never catch the train in time." As we drive under the 
cedars, on looking back, father is seen busily engaged 
examining the fixtures of the gate and mother is walk- 
ing back and forth on the long gallery, crying, " Good- 
bye, darling, good-bye ! " And yet, they would not have 
me leave the work and remain with them for all the 
gold in Alaskan hills. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

THE OLD PLANTATION HOME 

Should auld acquaintance be forgot, 

And never brought to mind, 
Should auld acquaintance be forgot, 

And days of auld lang syne. 

For several weeks during the winter of 1897-98 Miss 
Jessie Ackerman was my guest at the plantation. She 
was very much interested in the colored people and re- 
quested the privilege of holding a meeting with some 
of them in our dining-room and of furnishing the re- 
freshments. She desired to invite only fifty and these 
to be limited to the ex-slaves of the Kearney family. 
New Year's day was appointed for the gathering. 
Long before the noon hour our dusky guests began to 
arrive. Some came in respectable buggies driving well- 
groomed horses, some in lumbering farm wagons; 
others rode mules or walked. They were comfortably 
clothed and ragged, middle-aged and old, strong and 
feeble. One stumped in on a peg leg, his original mem- 
ber having been torn off in a cotton-gin " since de 
wah ; " rheumatism had sentenced another to crutches, 
and one came with tightly bandaged head to cover an 
empty eye socket ; but all felt very high-toned and im- 
portant and representative of the family dignity. The 

352 



The Old Plantation Home 253 

dining-room had been decked and garnished for many 
hours in anticipation of the unusual event. There were 
great branches of holly, rich in its dark green leaves 
and crimson berries, graceful, grey sprays of trailing 
Spanish moss, and clusters of mistletoe banked over the 
mantel, the pictures, the sideboard, the window-frames, 
—at every point of vantage. In the centre of the large 
table a huge basket of fruit peeped out from between 
drooping vines, and cakes and nuts and candies com- 
pleted an artistic and enticing decoration. 

The negroes stood in solid ranks about the table. 
Father had declined to act as master of ceremonies, as 
he was not well, and mother also refused the honor, 
which consequently devolved upon me. Near the door 
leading into the hall father stood, looking very worn 
and feeble, near him were my youngest brother and 
guests who had dined with us ; further on Miss Acker- 
man and myself, and beyond us sat mother. 

I opened the ceremonies by announcing that the 
agreeable occasion had been planned and carried out by 
Miss Ackerman ; that she had furnished the good things 
and wanted them all to have a happy time. After 
telling them of her travels and work as a mission- 
ary, Miss Ackerman was introduced. She fired 
their enthusiasm by a stirring speech. When she 
related the incident of walking on the bottom of 
the ocean, of lying in the ear of a god in India, 
and portrayed the terrors of a storm at sea, they 
gave a long, low, whining groan and pressed nearer to- 
p-ether, swavins: to and fro. At the close of her address 
the meeting was thrown open and different persons 



2 54 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

were called upon for testimonies. We thought to make 
it a love-feast and to be edified by many ripe Christian 
experiences ; but it took a different turn. '* Aunt Miry," 
an old woman on crutches, who was one of grand- 
mother's house servants, was the first one asked to 
speak. Without hesitating a moment she said : ** Who- 
ever would er thought that I could er cum inter Marse 
Walter's house lak dis ! It makes me think might'ly o' 
de time when ole mis' wur er livin', " then there fol- 
lowed a short dissertation, in mournful intonations, on 
the good old times when she " had ben tuk kyar uv an' 
everybody had plenty and to spar'." 

Numbers of men and women followed in the note 
struck by " Aunt Miry." The pathos deepened ; mother 
left the room. Father was the " Marse Walter " re- 
ferred to in the speeches. I watched his face as the 
meeting progressed. His eyes filled slowly with tears 
and his lips trembled with suppressed emotion. Finally 
" Uncle Jim Fisher " was called on ; he had been one of 
grandfather's slaves and was the old man with the 
empty eye-socket, left so by an invading sliver of iron 
while he worked in a blacksmith shop. Lifting his sad 
face reverentially he said in measured tones as if chant- 
ing a requiem : " Holy, holy, holy ! O, how sweet to be 
in my young Marster's house dis day! Look at my 
young Marster ! fresh an' fine, jes' off de vine ! " point- 
ing to father, aged and feeble, but who was never 
anything but beautiful in the eyes of the old slave who 
remembered him only and always as the handsome 
** young marster" of brilliant youth. 

Uncle Jim's speech was the most grandiloquent of 



The Old Plantation Home 255 

the day, and the most touching. When he finished 
father's indisposition was forgotten. His soul wa» 
awake and his mind stirred with memories of a hallowed 
past ; especially with the part he had played in the great 
drama so intimately allied with the destiny of the race 
whose representatives now before him had been held in 
slavery by himself and his kinsmen. Stepping quietly 
to the front he threw back his head, assuming an atti- 
tude peculiar to him when deeply moved, and made a 
strong, tender speech to those dark friends of happier 
days. Pressing about him closely they began to moan, 
crying softly with uplifted faces bathed in tears. " I 
have been your friend and shall be unto the end," were 
father's closing words. " Dat's so ! Marse Walter, dat's 
so ! " " Praise Gord, dat sho is so ! " came from all parts 
of the room. 

Finally, Harrison Green, the only preacher present, 
was asked to pray. He was a Hercules in ebony — one 
of mother's former slaves. Closing his eyes and stiff- 
ening his neck he made a prayer distinctive of the negro 
pastor in his unlettered, unfettered religious frenzy, — 
abjectly heart- revealing, boisterously sin-denunciatory, 
crowded with heaven ascending ejaculations and hell 
descending imprecations, all punctured with stentorian 
groans that appalled the ear and dismayed the soul. 
Miss Ackerman had provided fifty paper bags to be 
filled with the refreshments and taken home by her 
colored guests. When everybody had been served, Har- 
rison Green, the inflated preacher, said to me, *' Miss 
Belle, yer mus' call dis yer meetin' ter order agin an' 
give me er chance ter say cr word to dese yer folks." 



256 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

Silence was restored. Walking ostentatiously to a small 
table near, pushing his hands into his pockets and scru- 
tinizing the faces of his hearers, Harrison said : '' Look 
here, niggers ! is yer gwine ter brek up dis here meetin' 
in er onmannerly fashion, an' let dis strange white 
'oonian leave widout returnin' her sum perliteness by 
depressin' our thanks ? " Wheeling around to Miss 
Ackerman, he continued : '' We is pow'ful' bleeged ter 
yo', my sister, for dese yer things yer gin us fer ter 
eat, but pow'fuller more thankful for what yer tole us 
in yo' speech. Before yo' go away, 'dough, I think 
yo' had better tell us how to raise our chilluns." Shak- 
ing his list in sudden wrath at the group of boys and 
girls on the opposite side of the room who had crept in 
unnoticed and who were now chattering like guineas 
and cracking nuts with their shining teeth, he ex- 
claimed : '' Shut up dat fuss, niggers ! Ain' yer got no 
manners 'fore white folks ? " Cooling down again and 
altering his voice to the ministerial tone, one hand thrust 
out in mild gesticulation, he said to his colored friends : 
" Now my bredderin, a partin' an' a farewell word ter 
yo' an' me is dis : we mus' be so ongratef ul fer what dis 
here strange white 'ooman has done fer us dis New 
Year Day as to make us more inconsistent accordin' 
ter our religious departments fru all de years what am 
ter cum." 

After the benediction was pronounced " de meetin' 
broke up." Then the women came in a shy way to greet 
Miss Ackerman and me. What they said to her she did 
not tell, but one old woman, holding my hand in both 
her horny ones said : " Honey, doan' yer know mef My 



The Old Plantation Home 257 

gal, Jemimy Jane, she nussed yer." Another, after a 
hearty handshake, exclaimed : ** Lor', little missy ! I 
ain' seen yer since yer wur er chile. My gal, Drunella 
Clarissy, nussed yer ! " In mother's room I heard Sally, 
the heroine of the silver and Federal soldiers, saying: 
" Humph ! Dat white lady may be er traveler but she 
cyant tell me much. Tse seed storms on de Gulf o' Mex- 
ico when I use ter go down dar wid mistis' jes' 'bout as 
big as her in ennybody else has ever saw. Gwine down 
inter de bottom o' de ocean an' layin' in de year o' dat 
gord I doan' know nuthin' 'bout. I sho ain' done dat! 
But I jes' knows one thing: what dis here nigger an' 
her white folks has seed am sholy hard to beat ! " 



CHAPTER XXVII 

THE LAST FAREWELL 

Thank God that, looking across a grave, 

The world's dim vision clears, 
Till Calvary lies in the golden glow 

Of God's eternal years. — Mary T. Lathrap. 

Eighteen hundred ninety-eight was another 
fateful year to me. In January a business trip 
was made to Jackson, Mississippi. In the early 
dawn of a cold, grey morning I was seated in a 
train for the purpose of returning home. The only per- 
son in the car besides myself was a lady who sat at some 
distance behind me. In a few moments a gentleman, 
very Western and very noticeable in appearance, en- 
tered. Approaching me he lifted liis hat and said 
hesitatingly, *' Excuse me, but I followed you because 
I thought I knew you. " There was a quizzical look on 
his face which I construed as amusement. Thinking 
that the stranger's purpose in accosting me was simply 
to form an acquaintanceship to relieve the ennui of 
travel, all my Puritanical instincts rebelled. With a 
repellant air I said, " Yes ? " Considerably disconcerted 
but evidently intent on discovering my identity he scru- 
tinized my hand satchel for a name, and with a search- 

258 



The Last Farewell 



259 



ing gaze Into my eyes asked : " Is this Miss Belle Kear- 
ney ? " " It is, sir," was my reply, stiffer than before. 
A radiant smile passed over the gentleman's face and 
bending toward me he said in low, sweet tones that be- 
gan to sound wonderfully familiar, " Have the years 
washed out all remembrance ? I am your brother ! " 

It required then only a moment to recognize the be- 
loved comrade of early days, who read Shakspeare with 
me and helped to build the " castles in the air." There 
was the same tall, lithe figure, but with a man's sinewy 
strength and graceful dignity in place of the boyish 
bearing that filled my memory. Since leaving Missis- 
sippi for the West, at seventeen years of age, he had 
lived in Texas, Mexico and the mountains of New 
Mexico. In all that time he had returned home but 
once. 

After three days only, spent together on the planta- 
tion, I was forced to leave to fill some lecture engage- 
ments. My brother had never heard me speak, so he 
accompanied me to my next two appointments. On the 
last day we dined together at a dear friend's home. In 
the afternoon I stood on the front porch and waving 
my hand to him called out : " Farewell, dear heart ! 
Come home to us every year after this, won't you ? " A 
smiling good-bye was answered and he was gone. Little 
did I dream then that we should never meet again on 
earth. 

" Was it so long? It seems so brief a .while 
Since this still hour between the day and dark 
Was lightened by a little fellow's smile; 
Since we were wont to mark 



26o A Slaveholder's Daughter 

The sunset's crimson dim to gold, to gray, 
Content to know that, though he loved to roam 

Care-free among the comrades of his play. 
Twilight would lead him home. 

" But if we so, with eager eyes and glad, 

Looked forward to his coming in the gloom; 
If so our hearts leaped out to meet the lad 

Whose smiles lit all the room — 
Shall there not be a Presence waiting thus 

To still the bitter craving of the quest? 
Shall there not be a welcome, too, for us 

When we go home to rest ? " 

The followirxg summer my headquarters were made 
at a quiet little village on Narragansett Bay. I was the 
guest of my beloved friends, Ednah B. Hale and E. 
Carol Hodge, who are the gifts of God to me. While 
resting in their seaside cottage, the awful tidings 
reached me of the sudden death of the noble brother 
from whom I had so recently parted. Immediately after 
his visit to us in the spring he went to Las Cruces, New 
Mexico, where he intended to make his future home 
engaging in the practice of law. My precious brother ! 
Out of the shadows of the earth-Hfe he has stepped; 
the sunlight is over there. Surely our Father has pre- 
pared for him a place where his God-given faculties can 
find their full development, where he can grow into 
*' the perfect stature." Surely there awaited him the 
unspeakable bestowment of immortality — a happy, 
peaceful, glorified immortality. In the intuitive, di- 
vinely wrought assurance that had come to me, I asked 
no questions of God. I was conscious of no rebellion. 



The Last Farewell 261 

I lifted my thoughts calmly to Him, and with eyes un- 
dimmed with tears and lips untrembling with sobs, I 
said : '* It is all right, my Lord, whatever Thou sendest 
me. It is all right." This was the second brother who 
had gone out from us in less than three years ; the first 
not quite thirty, this last nearly ending his thirty-first 
year. 

Two scenes are stamped upon my brain and burned 
into my heart eternally. One October day in 1895 — a 
little funeral procession moving slowly from the old 
home at Vernon across the sunlit fields. The open 
grave, the gleams of evening light and flickering shad- 
ows slanting across its sides and upon the coffin; the 
home-going, the fever, the semi-consciousness, the rest- 
ing, the abiding, the all-rightness. In July, 1898, alien 
hands ministering to the young stranger hundreds of 
miles from home and loved ones, laid to rest at last by 
men whom the perils and the loneliness of the great 
American desert had made brotherly and loyal. Now 
there is a lonely grave at La Luz, in the far-away ter- 
ritory of New Mexico, in the depths of isolation, and 
the dreary winds, and the sweep and moan of the prairie 
grasses as they bend toward it — a lonely grave, and — 
God! 

After it came — the message of death — I kept right on 
with my work. What else could I do ? " For suffering 
and enduring there is no remedy but striving and do- 
ing." In the midst of the work and the loneliness, — the 
crowds and the stress of the human. Out of the dark- 
ness a voice was singing to my soul : 



262 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

" The self-same twilight, cool, and calm, and dim, 
That led him home to us, despite our fears, 
Shall lead us home to him ! " 

s|c sic ^ ^ ^ 

While on my way to New England in the summer of 
1898, I stopped in Pulaski, Tennessee, to pay my re- 
spects to my venerable great-aunt, Mrs. Ann Lindsay, 
who wore the crown of eighty-five years This gra- 
cious old lady discussed the Spanish war with absorbing 
interest and showed me family relics more than a hun- 
dred years of age. At last she drew out the family 
tree and began to descant upon it. She appeared to 
conclude that so late born a *' young American " needed 
tutoring on ancestral lines. *' My child," she said to 
me, while her sixty-five-year-old bachelor-son stood by 
and adjusted her white lace cap : '' I suppose you know 
that your great, great, great, great-grandfather was 
Sir David, the Earl of Lindsay, of Scotland? and that 
his son, James, came to America * forward ' in the 
seventeenth century, in the second or third fleet that 
sailed into James river, and settled in Gloster county, 
Virginia? and that your kinswoman, Mary Lindsay, 
daughter of Joshua, son of James, son of Sir David, 
married Edward Masterson, who was son of an Irish 
earl? and that Ann Lindsay, daughter of John, son of 
James, son of Joshua, son of old James the first, married 
George ZoUicoffer, son of John Jacob Zollicoffer, a 
Swedish baron? and did you know that you are the 
great, great, great, grand-daughter of Phillip Kearney 
whose father was an Irish earl ? And do you know that 



The Last Farewell 263 

the Lindsay coat-of-arms is Three Bullocks' Heads and 
the Bloody Yoke — livery blue, trimmed with red ? You 
must apply to the Herald's office of the ancient govern- 
ment to get the Kearney and the Masterson coat-of- 
arms, not remembered by any present member of the 
family." 

As the dear old lady talked on, the past now almost 
her only present, it was difficult to suppress a certain 
sense of the ludicrous. A scene of the long ago came 
before me; of my standing in the midst of my four 
brothers with this same family record in discussion, and 
of my saying, " Boys, when you marry I will frame 
a tree for each of you and present it on your wedding 
day." How they laughed, and one of them said deri- 
sively, " We had just as soon have so much sky ! It isn't 
the family tree that counts this day in the world, but 
brains, brains, brains, — and the energy to back them ! " 
It took me a long time to learn this wisdom, so early 
acquired by a boy's free contact with men; but after 
much sorrowful experience I did — thank God! Years 
of philanthropic work have taught me that " It's only 
noble to be good." However, I listened, interested, to 
my venerable aunt and later paid a visit with a heart 
full of reverence to a little grave-yard in the town of 
Pulaski, and searched out a long vault of stone under 
which lay the dust of one of my great, great-grand- 
mothers. Upon the marble slab was written : " Sarah 
Kearney Lindsay, Died, 1774." 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

THE " HEAVENLY BIRTHDAY 

A name earth wears forever next her heart; 
One of the few that have a right to rank 
With the true makers, — Anon. 

The month of February, 1898, found me in Wash- 
ington City attending the annual convention of the Na- 
tional American Woman Suffrage Association. On en- 
tering the building where the sessions were being held 
on February seventeenth, a friend said to me : " Do you 
know Miss Willard is dead? She passed away this 
morning — just after midnight." On Saturday I was in 
New York city, where the funeral services were first to 
be held, accompanied by Mrs. S. D. La Fetra, former 
president of the W. C. T. U. of the District of Columbia. 
My desire was to see Anna Gordon at once. Our great 
leader had entered into everlasting life from the Empire 
Hotel. As soon as possible her remains had been car- 
ried to the home of her niece, Mrs. Katharine Willard 
Baldwin, at 85 Clinton Place. 

About dusk, in the face of a driving wind and rain- 
storm, we found our way there.- We were invited into 
a little sitting-room. The door opened gently, and Mrs. 
Baldvv^in entered. After a quiet, but cordial greeting, 
she began to tell us about the going of Miss Willard. 

264 



The "Heavenly Birthday" 265 

*' Her death was very beautiful/' she said; "much 
more beautiful than grandmother's, because she was 
younger. She looked like a little child — soft and sweet. 
At the last she was totally unconscious. The departure 
of her spirit was exceedingly peaceful. Her breath 
went out in three restful sobs, the last like a strain of 
music, the most exquisite I ever heard. She lies in 
there," pointing to an adjoining apartment. " Anna 
Gordon is to sleep in the room with her every night 
until she is taken away." 

As we arose to leave, her eyes filled with tears, and 
she exclaimed : *' I can't realize that Aunt Frank is 
dead ! it seems so strange ! " In the darkness we went 
to the Empire Hotel to see the W. C. T. U. women who 
were congregated there. It was a pathetic company of 
forlorn workers. As they sat or moved about, mournful 
and helpless, talking in low, awe-stricken tones of the 
one dearest in all the world to them, who had gone up 
higher, I thought of that little band of disciples in the 
long ago who stood desolate, gazing '' steadfastly to- 
ward heaven " after their departing Lord, and the 
appearance of the angels in their midst. The Comforter 
was with us, too, that heart-breaking night, and the 
same sweet words came sifting into our souls : " Why 
stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus 
which is taken up from you into heaven shall so come 
in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven ; " 
and the blessed promise came with the thought : " Ye 
shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come 
upon you : and ye shall be witnesses unto me. . . to the 
uttermost part of the earth." 



266 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

As the women talked the leading sentiment to which 
they gave expression was : *' We have a common sorrow 
and a common joy. It is sweet for her to * enter into 
rest,' but pitiful for us who stand in the shadow — 
waiting." 

What pen of men or tongue of angels could summon 
words sufficiently strong or wise or tender in which to 
describe the work and the personality of this divinely 
inspired apostle of our Lord! Miss Willard's leader- 
ship was incomparable. She had the great power of 
drawing more people toward her, and of keeping them 
bound by the closest bonds of devotion, than any being 
that ever lived. The secret of it was that she was 
thoroughly true ; true to herself, true to humanity, to 
which she gave her best; true to her heavenly calling 
and purpose, true to God. Miss Willard was a marvel- 
ous orator, organizer, author, statesman. Christian. 

O, radiant spirit, O, sinless soul, thou hast won thy 
greatest victory ! Thou hast conquered death and en- 
tered upon the eternal verities ! Thou hast stood in the 
presence of the angels, and seen Christ face to face! 
" How beautiful it is to be with God." 

For over nine years Miss Willard had been more to 
me than any woman who lived, except my mother. She 
was the leading inspiration of my life. She was never 
too busy to be loving, never too tired to be interested in 
those who followed the white ribbon banner, uplifted by 
her devoted hands. In all the care-filled days of her 
wonderful life she took time to send words of cheer and 
assurances of loyalty and appreciation for the smallest 



The "Heavenly Birthday" 267 

thing done for Christ and humanity. On her way to 
England she sent the following back to me, — only a 
word of remembrance but invaluable as her words : 

" U. S. M. S. ' NEW YORK ' 








268 A Slaveholder's Daughter 

On hearing of her death I felt that one of the founda- 
tions of my existence had sHpped from under me and 
had drifted out to sea. Miss Willard was Hke no other 
human being. There was a divineness about her and a 
personal influence that no one else possessed. There 
will be many leaders, and great ones, but the world will 
never see just such a " chieftain " among women as 
Frances E. Willard. The great organization that grew 
to marvelous proportions under her matchless guidance 
has lost its ablest champion, the individuals who loved 
her their tenderest friend. After her death Lady Henry 
Somerset wrote in a personal letter, *' It seems to me 
sometimes that the work that lies ahead and the loneli- 
ness of life are almost impossible to face ; but the same 
Love that has cared for her and taken her to dwell in 
the Land where all is Love will encompass us and bring 
us at last to the haven where we would be, and where 
she is at rest." These heart testimonials have been writ- 
ten in the quietude of my old plantation home, in blessed 
communion with God and in sweet fellowship with 
mother and father, my best friends and loyal, loving 
comrades, standing now in the sunset glow of the even- 
ing of their lives : 

" Only waiting tiil the shadows are a little longer 
grown," when their souls, 

" A glorious bridge will make 
Out of the golden bars, 
And all their precious treasures take 
Where shine the eternal stars." 

With the dawn of the untried years beaming 



The " Heavenly Birthday " 269 

full upon me, through the swiftly opening gates of the 
twentieth century, here among the palm trees of Flor- 
ida, its blossoms, its song-birds, its radiant sunshine, 
where my work has brought me in this year of 
grace, 1900, I consecrate myself anew to God, 
and cry as fervently as when the call of the 
Master first came to my life, over a decade ago, 
" Here am I, Lord. Send me ! " give me strength of 
body and mind and spirit to work for the incoming of 
Thy Kingdom when not a being in all the world shall 
ask, through ignorance, " Who is Jesus of Nazareth ? " 
when the gentleness of Christ shall supersede the in- 
humanity of man; when every institution is banished 
which causeth a tear or maketh a lie ; when every law 
is so modified that no child shall cry for the loss of its 
birthright, nor a man "mourn for his broken life, nor a 
woman weep for the possession of her heritage. 

" I know not what the future hath 
Of marvel or surprise, 
AssuBed alone that life and death 
His mercy underlies. 

" And so beside the Silent Sea 
I wait the muffled oar; 
No harm from him can come to me 
On ocean or on shore." 



TPIE END. 



THE 



Bbbcy press 



114 

FIFTH AVENUE 

NEW YORK 



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AUTHORS AND ARTISTS 



J* t^ 



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De Mezailles, Jean. 
Dickens, Charles. 
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Flattery, M. Douglas. 
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Hamilton, Sam A. 
Ilaiuin, Margherita Arliua. 
Hartt, Irene Widdeiuer. 
Howard, tady Constance. 
Jennings, Edwin B. 
Johnson, Stanley Kdwards. 
Jokai, Mauriis. 
Kaven, E. Thomas. 
Kearney, Belle. 



Kent, Charles. 
Mankowski, Mary D. 
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Miller, Andrew J. 
Munn, Charles Clark. 
Napoliello, S. K. 
Palier, Iilmile A. 
Parkes, Harry. 
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Rideal, Charles F. 
Kunyan, N. P. 
Scribner, Kimball. 
Stevenson, Kobert Liouis. 
Tabor, Edw^ard A. 
Tolstoy, Count. 
Walker, Jessie A. 
Winter, C. Gordon. 



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Twenty-five Cents. 

" This useful addition to the writing table is nicely 
got up." — Princess. 

*' Is very well arranged, with suitable quotations 
and memoranda for every day in the year. It 
may be kept on the table or suspended agamst 
the wall or bookshelf, whichever may be most 
convenient, and in either position it is handy, and 
takes up but a small amount of space."-— Qweew. 



15 



DEC 3 1900 



INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT SECURED 

THE BOOKS PUBLISHED BY THE 

jf])bey Pre$$ are offered for 

SALE THROUGH ITS AGENTS IN 
MEXICO, CANADA, GREAT BRIT- 
AIN, CAPE TOWN, PARIS, BERLIN, 
MELBOURNE, CALCUTTA, AND TO 
THE CHIEF BOOK STORES AND 
DISTRIBUTORS, AND CONTROLL- 
ERS OF BOOKSTANDS, RAILWAY 
AND HOTEL STANDS IN THE 
UNITED STATES : : : : 

FINE PRINTING AND DAINTY BINDING 



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